MOSCOW. Jan 29 (Interfax) - Sberbank (RTS: SBER), Russia's biggest lender, sees three key areas for joint operations with Yandex.Money, the head of Sberbank's 21st century banking department, Svyatoslav Ostrovsky told reporters.
Sberbank plans to close a deal to acquire 75% minus one share in Yandex.Money in the first quarter of 2013.
"For Yandex we have a road map for the development of collaboration. In principle, there are three main areas on which we will work," Ostrovsky said.
He said the first area is "the creation of a leading solution in the area of electronic commerce" - a solution for online stores "in terms of the maximum number of different payment methods," integration with the main Yandex platforms and further expansion of partnerships with online stores that will work on this platform.
The second area is transfers between private individuals. "Within the context of working with transfers, we are joining forces with Yandex, we will make transfers as simple and convenient as possible. We have several interesting, innovative ideas. We will create products and develop them on the Yandex platform," Ostrovsky said.
The third area is expanding the range of payments, "recipients, who are on Yandex.Money, to pay for services for the Yandex.Money audience, which is continually growing and is fairly interesting for us," Ostrovsky said.
Sberbank announced in December 2012 that it was buying 75% minus one share of Yandex.Money for $60 million from Russian search engine Yandex, which will retain a blocking stake.
"Expanding the presence in the digital realm and developing online solutions is one of the priorities of Sberbank of Russia's business. And in Yandex we've found the best partner for substantially strengthening our position on the rapidly growing market of electronic commerce and Internet payments," Sberbank president and CEO German Gref said in December.
It was also reported at the time that Yandex.Money and Sberbank technical staff had already begun preparing for joint projects. New products will be launched under the brand and based on the technology of Yandex.Money. The company plans to start launching new products in 2013.
Sberbank vice president Denis Bugrov said the bank was interested in launching services that would popularize electronic payments, such as money transfers between private individuals (pear2pear), and payment services in the area of electronic commerce.
Vp
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