People in Russia have had the opportunity to pay for petrol with stored value cards – but they now have the opportunity to top them up with emoney, Web Money to say precisely. This is interesting – as petrol stations has been one of prime acquisition targets by banks acquiring businesses – as they hold a good percentage of federal card acquiring turnover (if we exclude main Russian cities, petrols are beacons of card spend in Russia).

Teaming with WebMoney is an interesting move – as WebMoney transformed itself into a sort of online bank (you have to sign in with a set of ID / password / certificates – you can also get loans from other WM holders and even create deposits) – users build up substantial balances on their accounts – so transferring the money to stored-value cards is a good way to transform the online cash into an offline card. This may even be a test for WebMoney – to see how many WM holders want to top-up cards – to probably launch its own prepaid.

This post comes to us from Daniel Gusev’s awesome web site: Retail Banking in Russia: Innovation Unfolded