Qiwi and Visa issued a joint statement yesterday announcing the successful transfer of funds from a Qiwi online wallet (“Qiwi Koshelek”) located in Russia to a Visa card account at a Ukrainian bank.
Processing the transaction, a transfer of 1,000 rubles ($34), took one minute. Steven Parker, Visa’s chief executive for Russia, confirmed that the transaction was the first of its kind ever, according to a report in CNews.ru, a Russian site specializing in IT news.
Visa launched its money transfer system in Russia in the period between 2005 and 2006. Cash deposits can be made offline at ATMs or eletronic payment terminals such as Qiwi’s. The funds, up to 15,000 rubles or $517, can then be transferred to Visa cardholders with accounts in 17 Russian, Kazakh and Ukrainian banks. The operation, however, can take up to 4 days.
By developing these services, Qiwi and Visa offer a competitive alternative to traditional money transfer services like Western Union or Unistream.
According to Russia’s Central bank, money transfers from Russia to other CIS countries, including Ukraine, amounted to $9.55 billion in 2009.
Qiwi launches new virtual Visa card
On the same day, Qiwi announced the launch of the Qiwi Visa Card (QVC), a new virtual Visa debit card account that can be opened and replenished easily from Qiwi online accounts.
A similar product, named Visa Virtual, had already been launched in 2009 by First Processing Bank, now a Qiwi subsidiary.
Both virtual cards can be used for online purchases on any e-commerce site worldwide that accept Visa cards. Commission rates and validity periods differ for each card. In addition, while funds for the Visa Virtual must be transferred manually from the user’s Qiwi online account, funds for the QVC are transferred automatically.
According to Oborot.ru, a leading online resource on e-commerce, Visa Virtual users spent 100 million rubles ($3.3 million) online in 2010, mainly on money games and entertainment.
Established in 2007, Qiwi is the leading Russian operator of offline electronic payment terminals – popular stand alone terminals through which Russians pay cash for virtually everything from mobile phone bills to orders at e-commerce sites to utilities, taxes and fines.
Qiwi claims 36 million online accounts, including 6 million active ones.
With operations in 15 countries in addition to Russia, Qiwi revenues for 2009 amounted to 6.1 billion rubles ($199 million) Earlier this year, Japanese holding Mitsui & Co. bought a 15% share in the company. The transaction valued Qiwi at $644 million.
