Why QIWI is the ingenious payment system of Russia

Why card payment technology in Russia is shit, and QIWI is a brilliant system of present and future

Among my familiar bankers and among my acquaintances ITs, there is no one who, even now, in 2010, seriously and with respect for the QIWI payment system. The strongest feeling that this stupid word gives them is a feeling of hatred, sarcasm. Although in fact they usually refer to these “lokhotron devices” with contempt and stupidly bypass them.
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Lyrical digression

When in 2003 (or so) I saw the first payment terminal in our city, I understood everything. The fact is that by profession I am an economist, that is, I have quite successfully graduated from the financial department of a local university, and accordingly most of my friends are bankers. But he chose the path of IT. Now, of course, Russia itself, and electronic payments have become different. Try to remember that time. Yandex.Money started just a few months earlier. WebMoney around the same time. There were very few mobile phones, especially in the provinces. The Internet worked by modem, by cards. There was no firefox. No, it will not work to remember.
In general, I spoke in a friendly way with my four best friends, bankers, and said that you can make good money quickly if you have time. It is necessary to have time to arrange these things in all the good places of the city. No one then believed my words that in four years these terminals would be located in every beer stall.

Present days

Now this payment system is called QIWI. She has long been in every beer stall. But in reality this is just the beginning before the future total change in payments in Russia. Facts and figures from Wikipedia.

Facts and Figures

• Payment service QIWI is the leader of the payment market in Russia, according to the results of 2009, the company's share is 49%;
• In 2009, through the United Company system (QIWI brand), 3.24 billion transactions were conducted in Russia, which is 12% higher than the total OSMP and e-port numbers of 2008;
• Turnover of the United Company (QIWI brand) in 2009 in Russia amounted to more than 319 billion rubles;
• The total number of providers available for payment through QIWI is more than 1200, which exceeds the number of providers of any other payment system.

What will happen next

Now it's funny to beat yourself with a heel in your chest, now it's the turn to try to imagine what will happen to QIWI in another four to five years.

About plastic cards

Plastic cards lose. To whom. Plastic is identification. Key. This is a key without feedback. Even then, in 2003, I told friends bankers that the ATM of the future was a mobile phone. Look at him carefully. A mobile phone is an ATM in your pocket. It has a display. There are buttons. It has a SIM card - this is a plastic card of the future, a login and key to all systems. Now this future is coming. Take a look around. Mobile phone number is login at the same time in two electronic networks. This is a login to electronic financial networks (and I think this term has the right to life) and this is a login to electronic public networks - the Internet, the Web.
The time of the postal address as a login on the Internet is gone. Large sites already successfully bind the user to the phone, not the mail. The phone number is used to recover the password on postal services. The phone number is used as a mail system for important messages such as hosting, for messages from different systems (for example, Google calendar), etc.

On the other hand, bank card networks actively apply SIM-card authorization. Based on a mobile phone, GSM banks are built, that is, account management, payments. In other words, in the banking sector, the user's SIM card already now has almost more opportunities than plastic.

Somehow, also a few years ago, I told my friend that Yandex.Money and Web Money would lose if they did not change. Since the de facto standard of mass electronic payments on the Internet will be SMS. Now these words have not surprised anyone.

In the same way, I can now say that systems like OpenID, OpenSocial, etc. lose SIM authorization. And of course, personal SSL certificates will remain the same exotic.
Authorization by mobile phone will be applied on gosuslugi.ru. Ok, now that's not about that, I just expressed my opinion.

The genius of QIWI is that they did not make their login at all. Shy people That is, they predict trends, and therefore made a login mobile phone. That's what I wanted to say.

What does it give them. In the battle of technology, that is, mass technology wins the most simple solutions. The most understandable. Kiwi was simple from the beginning, I would even say funny. This is the reason for the insidious OSB rebranding. They drew a cartoon design as opposed to the official “Ponte” of the banking system. With all their colorful screens, they prove that electronic payments are easy and fun.

Now QIWI is the largest bank in the country with a specialization in services for individuals. More precisely, this is what banks for physicists were supposed to turn into, but they didn’t shmogli because of their “ponts”, competition, technical opposition and the “war of ATMs”, paper bureaucracy, regulatory bullying of the Central Bank.

The user base is huge. I don’t know how many personal accounts they have, but in fact they balance very well between the old format “terminal for replenishing a mobile phone” and “a new type of ATM”. They are now gently switching users to personal accounts. Actually increase their customer base. The Mobile Wallet site on the Internet will shut up with Alpha and VTB, Sberbank, etc., for marketing forethought and opportunities. On the other hand, QIWI has “done it” a long time ago due to the capabilities of Yandex.Money and Web Money. According to the image, yes, he is the most deliberately sloppy and funny. But by technology ...

By technology. QIWI has client applications for mainstream mobile platforms that do a good job and evolve. Kiwi has a well-thought two-factor payment authorization - that is, it is one mobile number as a login, which is divided into two different passwords, one for the terminal, the other for the Internet, with payment confirmation by calling a mobile phone. While Yandex.Money fools its users with its reusable one-time cards, and WebMoney from the very beginning e-brain certificates, QIWI actually transferred this problem to outsourcing.

Coverage and service quality

Now QIWI is almost fully embedded in the periodic payments of a city dweller. There you can pay for internet, telephone, television, utilities, bank loans, various online applications and services, selling software. Make it all automatic. New "hit" - a virtual visa card. Allows you to pay for yourself, you understand a lot of things, and normally without hemorrhoids is attached to PayPal. Reports on payments come to the mobile phone. Available on the site in your account. That is, in comparison with the "correct" Visa - here the user controls all payments himself, the bank does not need a request, no details are needed. Someone will snort about 5%. Count in comparison, for example with Alpha. There, as far as I know, you need to put 1,500 rubles into a freeze, and it costs 600 rubles per year. In total, for Alpha to become more profitable than QIWI, you need to spend more than 15-40 thousand per year on the Internet. And this is not counting the benefits of anonymity, and therefore the absence of any potential problems with the state, etc.
QIWI skillfully tariffs, that is, at the same time it provides good dumping (now replenishment of a mobile phone through QIWI is completely free, who else?) And makes good money on other services. They can afford it now, as they have the most providers.

Qiwi terminals are cheap. Where the Bank can afford one ATM, KIWI allows ten devices, and they have built an excellent network construction scheme, namely, they sell and lease their terminals. In other words, do not distract money for investments in iron. Mass terminals, standardization of equipment allows to unify and reduce the cost of software development.
Even if you do not take into account the psychological aspects of software design, then according to the hardware addressed to the user, the kiwi is better and more understandable than a traditional banking coffin. Large, with good colors touch screen. Convenience of reading information. Virtual keyboard. As already said - the lack of fuss with plastic.

Expansion

Kiwi offers its services very smoothly and calmly (we will all be there). You will not see their ads on TV. You will not see any "vparivany" it is not clear what the sauce new technologies. In Qiwi, there is no need to pay in advance. Do not learn anything.

I have already written a lot of text, but did not say what will happen next. I will reveal the secret. All news articles can fit on Twitter. In fact, Kiwi has finished with periodic payments and physicists. The next stage is “settling” payments between individuals themselves, between companies. Accounts. Kiwi will replace not only ATMs. Kiwi will replace cash in stores, supermarkets. Kiwi can easily convert into electronic form a very large part of the money supply turnover. Will start giving loans. It is quite possible to guess on your own how this will happen.

I see only one competitor in QIWI. This is our big honeycomb triple. But they develop their three payment systems, although they are united under short numbers.
And I also see one “pest” - the state. For a long time they will try to shove the QIWI dragon bird into an iron bank cage.

Sergei.