Moscow Metro has partnered with VTB, a leading Russian financial institution, and Google to launch a new payment service. Users with the Google Pay payment service and a Mastercard card can now instantly pay for their metro ride: they just need to hold their smartphone above the reader at the turnstiles. In the near future, the new …
Yandex.Checkout, a leading Russian payment service provider, is going to run its international operations – essentially in cross-border B2C payment operations – under a new brand, ‘YooMoney.’ The company says the transition will be completed by mid-December, 2020. As for domestic operations, they are now run under brand of ‘YooKassa.’ These changes are coming as …
Now fully owned by Sber, Yandex.Checkout rebrands to ‘YooMoney’ Read More
While gold is considered a safe heaven, it is not currently a mainstream investment among Russians, whose money is more likely to go into other options, including cryptocurrencies. Less than one-fifth of Russian investors, or just 16%, own gold and coins, but most are positive towards the idea of investing in the yellow metal, according …
Russians prefer cryptocurrencies over gold, says World Gold Council report Read More
Russian billionaire Oleg Tinkov has sold his stake Sravni.ru, a major Russian finance and insurance marketplace, to Baring Vostok and Goldman Sachs, reports VC.RU. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Sravni.ru defines its mission as “to help people make the right choices and achieve financial goals.” Its users are assisted in choosing financial …
Sber, the Russian state-controlled financial and tech giant, is teaming up with Visa to launch “Russia’s first Data Lab.” The partners intend to “use anonymized data to track changes in customer behavior and design the most customized offerings for all users of card products by applying artificial intelligence and machine learning tools.” “The move is aimed at …
Sber and Visa launch data lab with AI supercomputer Read More
The proposed megamerger between Russia’s leading technology company Yandex and fast-growing challenger bank Tinkoff has been scrapped. In an announcement to the London Stock Exchange — where Tinkoff’s holding company TCS is listed — the bank said negotiations between the two sides had been “terminated, effective immediately.” Yandex and Tinkoff previously announced they had reached an “agreement …
Tinkoff scraps $5.5 billion deal with Yandex, shares plunge Read More
The sale of Tinkoff Bank to Yandex is far from certain, Russian online publication The Bell wrote yesterday, just three weeks after the two companies announced an “agreement in principle” on a $5.5 billion merger. Oleg Tinkov, the owner of the online bank, is also considering other buyers — in particular mobile operator MTS, or …
Yandex, MTS, etc.: Oleg Tinkov reportedly holding parallel talks to sell his online bank Read More
On Tuesday the Bank of Russia released a consultation paper on the development of the digital Russian ruble, confirming plans aired previously. Dubbed ‘central bank digital currency,’ or CBDC, the digital ruble could become an additional form of money alongside cash and non-cash. “All three forms of the Russian ruble will be absolutely equal: 1 ruble in …
Russia’s central bank considers launching digital ruble Read More
According to BCG report Global Payments 2020: Fast Forward into the Future, Russia is among the five world leaders in terms of speed for the transition to non-cash payments during the Covid-19 pandemic. Analysts calculated the net change in consumer cash payments, based on the proportion of consumers who used cash more frequently during the …
Russia among top 5 countries for transition to cashless payments during pandemic Read More
Sberbank — the state-controlled giant which recently unveiled a suite of new technology products and dropped the word ‘bank’ from its corporate branding — is compiling a database of Russian citizens’ biometric information. Little is known about how the project is progressing, but online publication The Bell believes it could potentially concern some 100 million users of …
Commuters in Moscow will soon be able to take a ride on the metro with just a turn of their heads, as the Russian capital embraces next-generation facial payment technology. At least one turnstile at each metro station will be equipped with the contactless facial recognition technology as soon as next spring, Moscow authorities say. The system, which …
Moscow Metro to introduce facial payment technology Read More
The Skolkovo Foundation and VR_Bank have evaluated the digitalization level of the top 50 Russian banks in the first half of 2020. Tinkoff Bank – which has just agreed an acquisition deal with Yandex – became the leader and moved up one place compared to 2019. It is followed by state-controlled bank VTB, which moved …
Tinkoff, VTB and Sberbank top Russian bank digitalization ranking Read More
