The board of Rostelekom, Russia’s leading long-distance telephony provider, announced its plans for the future. The company keeps its clients up to date with the latest developments. So, Rostelekom is going to create its own payment system like WebMoney and PayPal. The service is expected to be introduced by the end of 2014, however, the appropriate license has not been obtained yet. Andrey Polyakov, the Rostelecom spokesman, noted that by launching the project, the company intends to find its place in the sun in the financial services industry. No details have been disclosed yet. Nevertheless, the journalists found out that the upcoming service will have one distinctive feature. Unlike the other digital wallets, the Rostelecom one will be connected to banks more closely in order to enable its clients to use services of their financial institutions as well. Hence, the developers are starting out to extend the functionality of a digital wallet to make it one-size-fits-all for clients. According to the estimates, making such transactions, Rostelecom might boost its annual profit by several billion rubles. In case the result lives up to the expectations, within few years the operator might increase its share in the electronic payments industry up to 15%. Rostelecom clients are supposed to test the new service first. Their accounts will be automatically linked to it. Clients of other companies could also make use of the service. Only 30% of the polled Russians make online payments, while 70% prefers the conventional ways of payment. The marketing strategy will be designed to draw attention of those 70% of people.
