PR - Ukash expands across Russia
 

100,000 kiosks across Russia are now issuing Ukash vouchers, making safe and fraud free internet payments a reality in this emerging market. Customers pay in Ruble banknotes and receive a Ukash voucher up to 500? direct to their mobile, which they can then use to pay for access to any website that utilises the cash based processor.

?Historically, Russia has been a difficult market for webmasters to monetize due to high incidents of chargebacks and fraud? Ukash?s CEO Mark Chirnside said. ?Our solution allows them to start making risk-free money from this vast emerging market, which remains a cash based economy.?

With a presence in the U.K., mainland Europe, South America, North America, Australia, China and South Africa, the company says consumers can now get Ukash through secure bank transfers and at a number of physical issuing points around the world. :pimp

Wow! Where did you read that? I live in Moscow but didn't hear nothing about that.

BTW, is that good or bad news?

Russians were ALWAYS using mobile payments to access the commercial Internet sites/services etc. Also during many years, Russians use Webmoney and Yandex Money internet payment systems (local equivalents of PayPal). Actually that's why PayPal will never be popular in Russia. And one more thing. You know that Russians almost don't use VISA/MC to pay in Internet. This is not because an average Russian don't have a plastic card, but because they are AFRAID to use their card in the Internet (most of them consider they will be cheated there).

This is a sight directly from Russia.

A few words about plastic cards. It's a VERY BIG delusion to think that Russians don't have/use them. Most of Russian have VISA/MC cards. First of all, in many regions of Russia ATM is the only way to receive your salary, so when you get a job, you automatically get VISA or MC card to cache your earning.

Whose who don't work are receiving social and pension cards. For example, my parents are pensioners and they are getting their pension from ATM only.

In Moscow even schoolboys like my son have a so-called social card of Moscow citizen which looks like one of these:

http://sela.ua/images/news/small/cards_news_new.jpg

http://railtickets.narod.ru/galery2005/291.jpg

As you can see, all these cards are VISAS and they are linked to the real bank accounts. So everyone, even a schoolboy can use it in ATM or any shop/cafe etc.

But only a small % of Russians use their plastic cards online.

Hey cyberxxx, see also http://www.ukash.com/global/en/news/russia-osmp.aspx

It is good news : for webmasters, since they can start to make money from a market which, as you point out, has low credit card usage online. And for Russians, since they have a reliable way to pay for compelling web content.

It is ironic that Russians are afraid to use plastic online for fear of fraud. Many processors are fearful of Russian cards for precisely the same reason lol

I agree with cyber, same deal here in Ukraine. People are scared to deal with the fraud case as of they get ripped enough by other institutions and most likely will never win back.
There is no such thing like home accountant system that is widely spread in our countries. People mostly just get by, nobody actually keep records. People also get scared by overdraft thing they heared of is possible, though mostly it is not because their cards are debit not credit ones.

So plastic is mostly used for ATM as a method to get cash.

And with all respect i hardly believe somebody in Russia will ever pay for porn.

I gotta move there...

good news:)

Our network of live cam sites offer UKash as a payment option to potential members, keep up the good work, the more widespread the more visitors we can convert into paying members to fatten our affiliates' bank account. :thumbsup

Sounds like a nice solution for those areas where creditcard penetration is low. I think I got the domains sitevoucher.com and sitevouchers.com lying somewhere, maybe I should dust them off. :)

Not just low cc countries milambur - remember, there's a whole lot of people out there with cards but would rather not use them online because:
- card is maxed out
- they are fearful of fraud/identity theft
- they do not want leave a digital trial (wife/gf to find out lol)

So, yes, time to dust off those domains:winkwink:

its tried before in other countries, wont work