Russia - a banking pioneer?
by Mark Pickens: Tuesday, June 19, 2007
There is m-banking with phones, approaches to banking the poor with point-of-sale terminals, and business models that use phones and cards together. But Russia is pioneering an altogether different approach to opening access to payment services.
More than 120,000 automated payment terminals have been deployed in Russia, mostly in the last two years. Located in public spaces, unmanned terminals like this one below provide 24/7 ability to buy prepaid airtime and other telecom services, pay municipal utilities, rent or taxes, or make a repayment on one of the estimated 20 million consumer loans outstanding.
No bank account is required. You can’t make a deposit or a remittance yet, but the boom in payment terminals should be good news for the 60 million adult Russians who are unbanked but need an affordable, convenient and reliable way to make retail payments. Read the rest of this page »
