Mail.ru Group and Sberbank to cooperate on electronic payments

Mail.Ru says that users of the [email protected] system, with the cards of Visa or MasterCard , will be able to replenish their electronic accounts through Sberbank's bank machines and payment terminals without any commission.

According to an estimate of the Electronic Money association, total active e-money users in Russia came to 30 million at the end of 2010, with e-money accounts totaling 70 billion rubles.Anatoly Popov, Vice President of sales department at Sberbank, says this cooperation will help to further promote electronic money in Russia, as well as expand the range of the banks’ activities“Popularity of electronic money in Russia is constantly growing and cooperation with one of the biggest payment systems in the market, [email protected], organically goes in line with our strategy to develop a modern universal bank, that satisfies the needs of different groups of clients in a wide range of banking services.”Andrey Efimochkin, a head of the project [email protected], added thatthe new service would be very popular, as Sberbank offices were available almost everywhere in Russia.“The chance to add to an account through the service Sberbank offers will be in demand among the users of [email protected], as it’s very convenient – a filial network of our partner in Russia only includes 17 territorial banks, about 20,000 branches and over 50,000 automated bank tellers and payment terminals throughout the whole country. Speed, safety, absence of commission payments – all this makes the joint project of Sberbank and the payment system unique in the market.”