WebMoney: a success story or a closing chronicle?

I am writing this post for two reasons:

1. WebMoney has always caused controversial feelings in me: on the one hand, this is the first online payment system in Russia (by the way, one of the first in the world, if you take a particular aspect), with decentralization in place (in this case, you can see the difference between this type of system is relatively distributed), but at the same time the financial and especially the organizational component for me personally always remained a minus.
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2. No matter how much I would like to, but the Central Bank of the Russian Federation stubbornly follows the path of “cutting off all the ends” from the ship p2p. In the first place - in financial flows. But at the same time, the state itself suffers as a result, since even by modest bureau-machine standards, Russia is among the top ten countries in the use of crypto. Although, anyone interested, can find in my notes (not here) a brief post about mining btc back in 2012, where Russia was also ahead of the rest.

And now about WebMoney, its features and issues that today absorbed everyone.


The first. WM, unlike Qiwi or Yandex, is not electronic money, but checks. Accordingly, even today the legal status of these funds varies greatly from what is described in the Federal Law "On the National Payment System". In particular, this means that in case of theft, it is impossible to refer to the provisions of this regulatory act. Sometimes this is a plus, but regarding theft cases - rather a minus.

But WebMoney consciously did not go for the implementation of the law, understanding that its norms are in many ways restrictive. But more recently, the Central Bank representatives visited the Conservative Commercial Bank (judging by the site is very, very conservative) and made it clear that the old scheme of work is at odds with the general policy and it would be necessary to adopt a new one. Accepted.

After that, WebMoney immediately (I tell you as a representative of the exchange service who collaborates with dozens of colleagues, including quite large ones) “felt” interruptions. True, I will give their due, they did not last long.

The scheme is simple: the VM signs the contract and the replenishment goes on spec. to account. But, as you know, after the story of Qiwi, whose shares collapsed under pressure from the same Central Bank, spec. You can replenish your account in only 2 ways: a) cash and b) from another special. accounts The most interesting thing is that if you think about it and / or know the market well, you can come to the conclusion that such an approach is no bad for “cashiers”, since it’s not a problem to get cash. It is enough to raise the interest per transaction. But law-abiding legal entities, such a scheme blocked a lot of oxygen. Especially those who made payments on WMR (and, believe me, there are a lot of such).

Many have moved from b2b to p2p. But here, WebMoney also did not last long: just yesterday, the famous news appeared:

Dear members of the system,
In connection with the transition to a new legal model, the Guarantor for WMR does not temporarily withdraw WMR to bank accounts of individuals. At the moment, you can withdraw funds from the R-wallet to your bank account by placing a request for wire.exchanger.ru/ruout

In addition, you can access WMR output through exchange offices - geo.webmoney.ru/wmobjects/mapex/default.aspx?t ... and output to any exchange card - telepay.wmtransfer.com/ru/custom/cards (read carefully tariffs). Thank you for your understanding and apologize for the inconvenience.

And the topic, of course, became the subject of heated debate .

What do we have in the end?

First, a system with a huge number of people , which can be compared with a small state (and in terms of funds, too), which recently opened an official representative office in Europe, anticipating the Russian scenario.

Secondly, WMX quasi-currency, which again became one of the first in Russia and generally showed the mood of the company (especially considering the status of WMR and WMZ).

Thirdly, another story, when the intervention of the Central Bank is too late and negative at a specific time and place. Yes, WebMoney is in many ways a “laundry” and the evidence is not small, but why wait 18 years, gentlemen? When the system became truly international and fell in love with many freelancers (although, I repeat, not to me, but according to the experience of orders, this currency is accepted on the same freelancer.ru and similar sites with a bang! ”, Not to mention such outsource mini-projects , as on workzilla).

Fourth, WM, even after all the perturbations, has a huge network of exchangers, dealers, certification centers, etc. And instead of upgrading, as always, we go to the closure? In my opinion - not very rational.

Afterword

Judging by the monitoring today, there is not much excitement among the exchangers, although to say that it does not exist at all is also impossible: it happens in bursts. But there is still something to analyze.

My question is simple: but what about replacements? VM, whatever it is, is a complete system of input, output and transfer in the CIS. Remittances are killing, banks are cutting, e-currencies are not needed. Cards? Suppose, but I personally do not like any position imposed from above, even if it seems to be correct. Maybe because he was born in the era of Perestroika, when one system was already killed, and another was not created: at a time when too much that seemed correct, became a story with different interpretations, and the future was a true coincidence.

And maybe everything is altogether simpler and it's time to expand, create and act on time, and not be late, destroy and narrow to absurdity? I do not know. The question is not for all rhetorical. For me, once again - just open.