OREANDA-NEWS. April 2, 2008. The payment infrastructure of CyberPlat® greatly exceeds the network of banking institutions in Russia

Currently, the network of CyberPlat® payment outlets comprises more than 118 000 direct outlets accepting cash payments in favor of the leading operators of mobile telecommunication, commercial television and providers of numerous services countrywide. Inclusive of the sub-dealer outlets their number is estimated at 170 000 point. This wide network allows CyberPlat® to provide payment acceptance practically in any populated locality in Russia. The unique coverage density in the territory of the country makes the process of payment convenient and comfortable for the subscribers and considerably saves their time.

The payment acceptance network has been continuously growing, and it can be explained by two factors:

Firstly, the payment acceptance via CyberPlat® is beneficial for the retailer companies. They not only receive their income in form of commission fee but attract to their sales outlets additional customers as well.

Secondly, the possibility to pay for numerous services in the nearest payment outlet is very convenient for the customers. This builds up their loyalty to the point-of-sale.

Therefore, retailers willingly get connected to CyberPlat® in order to provide their customers with additional services.

According to the statistics of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation on March 1, 2008 (http://www.cbr.ru/statistics/bank_system/print.asp?file=inform_08.htm), the number of banking institutions in Russia providing services for the population, inclusive all their branches, departments and movable cash registers, does not exceed 42 thousand points, i.e. the CyberPlat® payment system has a four times larger network than the whole banking system of the country. One should consider that bank branches don’t work round-the-clock, compared to numerous payment outlets and cash-in terminals which do so. Besides, they are located not in the places, which are convenient for the population but where the bank branch can meet the requirements of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.

It is quite evident that the number of retailer shops and stores is much greater than that of banking facilities. Many of these shops accept numerous types of payments via the CyberPlat® system.
Presently, payments via the CyberPlat® payment system are being performed in the post offices of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise “Russian Post”, MTS and Beeline offices, mobile shops of the largest retailers, among which are Evroset, Svyaznoy, Dixis, Tsifrograd, Betalink, Teleforum, TC-Retail, home electronics networks Eldorado, Mir and Bely Veter, supermarkets Ostrov and Alpi, gas stations Gaspromneft and Lukoil, pharmacy networks Apteka 36.6 and Aibolit and many other points of sale.

The cost of payment processing in a retailer network is considerably lower than in the banking system: the payment is accepted through a regular cash register and the cashier maintains the main operation of the commercial facilities along with the payment acceptance. This allows accepting and processing very small amounts of payments, whereas it is wasteful for the banks to perform the same operations because of their higher cost value. Therefore, CyberPlat adds to the banking payment system in Russia and saves it from a considerable number of economically unprofitable operations.