Yandex.Checkout, the online payment solution offered by Yandex.Money, can now be used by app developers and e-merchants to accept contactless payment via Apple Pay.
“This payment method may stimulate impulse purchases. Everything is so simple: one touch of a finger on your smartphone — and you are all set,” said Alexander Magomedov, Chief Commercial Officer at Yandex.Money.
Yandex.Checkout is not the only Russian PSP to offer Apple Pay for merchants, “but we were the first to offer this service,” Anna Kovaleva of the company’s press service told East-West Digital News.
Apple’s payment service, which was introduced in Russia in October 2016, is now supported by several major sites, including those of Aeroflot, Lamoda, Onetwotrip, Ozon, Utkonos, Ticketland.ru, and others.
Yandex, the leading Internet search company in Russia and a co-owner of Yandex.Money, has made payments by Apple Pay possible in several of its in-house apps. These include Yandex.Taxi, Yandex.Fines, and online movie database Kinopoisk.
Contactless payments in Russia
Contactless payments are already available in Russia for various types of purchases — be it in offline retail outlets, restaurants and cafés, or public transport since as early as 2011.
“No less than 35% of Yandex.Money’s mobile users have already used contactless payment,” Anna Kovaleva told EWDN.
According to the latest data by Yandex.Money, 33% of contactless payments are made for purchases amounting to less than 100 rubles (approximately $1.6), 45% for amounts comprised between 100 and 500 rubles (approximately $8) and 22% for higher amounts. The average transaction amount reaches 640 rubles (less than $11).
Yandex.Money itself made Apple Pay available to its users in November 2016.
One month earlier, Yandex.Money had introduced money transfers via iMessage, allowing the users of its app to send money to each other easily and directly through iMessage.
In July 2016, Yandex.Money, had made its app available on the Apple Watch. Thus Yandex.Money users can top up their mobile phones or transfer money to friends right from their wrist. Sberbank, the national savings bank, had made a similar move a bit earlier.
