Rbk Money a new leader or PayPal deja vu?

Such system as Rbk Money has been expected long enough. The high economic growth dynamics in CIS countries even may point to the fact that RBK Money has been tardy with its coming to the market. Since PayPal has chosen a policy of unilateral work with Russia CIS was been waiting for a payment system that could replace PP functionally. And it finally came!

The market entry of RBK Money went by the rulebook of big business. Several weeks before the launch they have made a big fuss over the system that was stirring up the interest by the news that RuPay was sold to RBC company.

After entering the market RBK Money has started a banal strategy by promoting its payment processor as an optimal tool for making payments in the Internet shops. The lack of originality in marketing is proven by the promo-campaigns of the company promising some discounts if you pay on some definite site for some merchandise or service.

Now let’s turn to the project itself and see the functional offered by Rbk Money. The dearest url www.rbkmoney.ru opens a very interesting and gratifying to the eye picture. Nice green colors, modern design and friendly interface – everything is charming. However, the practiced eye and a digital intuition prompt immediately: I’ve seen this somewhere before.

It seems that you have seen the similar picture on the main page, the buttons and all other items but where?... Surely on the site of PayPal! And no special talent is needed to notice this. The similarity of two systems is too evident, just look yourself:

A visual similarity really impresses, doesn’t it?…

However, firstly I’m interested what this creature has inside. After 10-15 minute trouble with registration I found myself in my personal account. The first impression is an account rich in content, lacked by PayPal, with a friendly interface. The main menu for account control lies to the left. Here one can see the payment statement, security settings, and deposit/withdrawal options.

The first thing that interested me was funding and withdrawal. So, RBK Money offers to fund the account by the following methods:
- Plastic card;
- Prepaid cards;
- Bank wire;
- Payment terminals;
- Money transfer services;
- Electronic payment systems (Yandex.Money)
- Exchange partners (Trainex, WMer.ru, i-pos.ru, Megaexchange, Roboxchange, redxchange)

Here you begin to understand the main trump of RBK Money: loading of the account in RBK Money is a piece of cake. Certainly such a wide range of the possibilities predetermines a great number of fraudulent activities undertaken against the system. It is still not clear how the system will struggle against the carders who will definitely like such a payment system.

Now let’s say a few words about the withdrawal. Here the imagination of the developers of Rbk Money was much poorer or may be the imagination of the security system was too rich. In any event the system offers the following:
- without opening the account, via "CONTACT" service (fee is 4,5%, deposit term is 24 hours during the working days);
- deposing to the account of any natural person in any bank of the Russian Federation (fee is 3% + 10 rubles without bank charges, deposit term is 3-5 working days);
- to bank card issued by any Russian bank на банковскую карту, выпущенную любым российским банком (fee is 3% + 10 rubles without bank charges, deposit term is 3-5 working days);

Not bad, you may say. I thought the same until I’ve noticed one footnote:
Attention! The money of payment is possible only for the owners of the “Extanded” wallets of RBK

was really shocked when opened the section where one can gain the “Extended” status for his or her wallet. I found where a form where I was to enter my password details.

We have already checked deposit/withdrawal options, so it’s high time to check the security of the funds of the Rbk Money client. We open security section and see that the security options of the system are as follows:
- IP identification
- Payment password

It is relatively little, even if compared to the same WebMoney and PerfectMoney. Our experience prompts us that such security options will hardly save Rbk Money from the phishers.

One of the features of Rbk Money that made us glad is the possibility to make mobile money transfers that becomes popular in Russia however are not the frequently used function.

We were also pleased with the number of shops working with Rbk Money. Certainly, most of them were initially accepting RuPay but in any case it is necessary to mark a full range of POS allowing to go shopping for those who have a positive balance in Rbk Money.

There is an opinion that Rbk Money is one of those payment systems that are quite clear even before starting the sign up. It is the processor for those who don’t afraid to disclose the system his or her plastic card code and passport details, which can be used when you have a plastic hard at your hand and want to make a purchase in some Internet shop that doesn’t accept plastic cards but works with e-currencies.

At first glance Rbk Mone has great chances for success. One can even suppose that this system will very soon turn into PayPal but for CIS but for one “however”…

This “however” is the mentality of the RUnet user and the development of the Internet in CIS. The thing is that only a very limited circle people use e-currencies. Those turnovers may be even very high however electronic money is not popular everywhere. Also people didn’t get accustomed to pay with plastic cards which are possessed by lots of people however used only as a tool to get the wages. People simply are not accustomed to plastic cards and hence there is no that soil to plant out the green Rbk Money brairds.

But it is not the main issue! The main factor of PayPal’s popularity was EBay. The lack of the payment alternatives made PayPal a leader of the world market of internet payments. The latter became possible owing to the American mentality that has accustomed the Americans to pay with plastic cards even for the pizza and taxi. And Rbk Money has no EBay and even if one appears they will need the years to teach people to buy and to sell merchandise by paying with Rbk Money. The auctions existing today in Runet testify that the auction trade will remain unpopular long enough.

It’s beyond doubt that Rbk Money will grow and develop, will become commercially successful, however its profits will be far from the ones gained by WebMoney and PayPal. Today lots of people see in Rbk Money just an ordinary payment system that tries to gain the high positions. Its advantage is a solid credibility of RBC RuPay. Its disadvantage is a poor development of plastic cards in CIS and absence of the global marketplaces where RBC Money could be used as the payment tool. Everything say for the appearance of one more payment processor which will occupy its market segment and will remain there without further development due to lack of opportunities to win new markets.

Is Rbk Money worth using? Surely it worth though you have no alternatives if you just a common user who wants to purchase something in the Internet shop and pay by plastic card. This system was definitely created for those who don’t lose any sleep over the e-money and use it rarely. It is evident that this system is too “white” to be used in Internet business and for paying the contractors as it is scrupulous about the question of client identification. Nobody doubts that Rbk Money has its customers. However they are not numerous and not developed...

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