Yandex.Money, a leading Russian e-wallet with about 25 million user accounts, has made its app available on the Apple Watch. The app appears on the screen of the watch as soon as users update correspondingly the Yandex.Money app on their smartphones.
Thus Yandex.Money users can top up their mobile phones or transfer money to friends right from their wrist. The app also includes options for checking the balance of an account and receiving push notifications.
All the payments which users have in their Favorites folder on the web or mobile version of Yandex.Money are shown on the Apple Watch. What’s more, Yandex.Money users will soon be able to continue on Apple Watch payments operations started on the web or mobile app, the Yandex.Money press service told East-West Digital News.
Photo credit: Yandex.Money
Yandex.Money is not the first Russian payment app to become accessible via Apple Watch. Sberbank, the Russian savings bank — and co-owner of Yandex.Money — already has similar app, but Yandex.Money claims that its own app has some specific features.
Payment functions were introduced on watches as early as 2013. That year, Gazprombank and AK Bars launched Watch2pay, an Austrian watch with a built-in bank card with MasterCard PayPass support for contactless payment. Alfa Bank and Center-Invest started selling these watches in some Russian cities in 2015, as reported by Russia Beyond The Headlines.
The Apple Watch was launched in Russia just one year ago. No official information is available on its use in the country Russia.
Live chat payments
Yandex.Money also announced that Yandex.Checkout, its payment solution for online retailers, now features a built-in chat payment feature.
“Many online stores already have live chat support available to visitors on their sites. Now, if customers would like to make an order after consulting with a support agent, they can initiate the payment process right from the chat window. In the chat window, the support agent sends the customer information about the order and a ‘Checkout’ button appears to redirect the buyer to a payment page,” Yandex.Money explains.
To get access to payments via live chats, online merchants can simply enable the option inside their Yandex.Checkout accounts.
The new Yandex.Checkout option is based on JivoSite, a chat-platform provider that serves over 145,000 stores. Tests have shown that live chat sessions increase sales by 10% at least.
Yandex.Money claims to be the first payment service to integrate a checkout feature to live chats in Russia.
Yandex.Checkout was launched by Yandex.Money in 2013. Earlier this year, a new checkout method was introduced, allowing merchants to identify their customers’ preferred payment methods. Every user is offered a set of several payment methods, which are assumed to be the most convenient to him or her. After the user confirms his or her preferred method, a new smart checkout procedure will be presented at the time of their next purchase on the site, or any other site using Yandex Payment Solution.
Currently, more than 76,000 online stores in Russia and CIS countries use Yandex.Checkout, according to the company.
