The companys e-wallet subsidiary Yandex.Money is currently running a new type of online payment experiment via an open pilot that lets customers of the top three Russian mobile operators top up their mobile phones straight from Yandex’s search results, hottopics.ht reports. They can also pay fines.
When the user types an instruction like ‘pay parking fine’, a payment form appears immediately under the search box. Then, customers can type their registration number and the system will display any fines due. The user can then input their payment password or a one-time password from a text message to pay by Yandex.
The company has around 20 million accounts and is integrated into thousands of e-tailers in the region, as well as municipal services like utilities and parking. Users can even apply for a physical debit card, which they can top up from their online accounts and then use at ATMs. According to TNS media and market research company, 87% of Russians are familiar with it, and 22% regularly use it to make payments.
In 2014, Yandex.Money teamed up with Simtech to launch Merchium, a single service to enable anyone to create their own online store. It has a built-in checkout, CS-Cart, which is used by more than 35,000 online stores across the world. The checkout incorporates Yandex.Money’s payment API. The firm predicts that in the next two years around 10,000 online stores will be created with it.
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