OREANDA-NEWS. February 15, 2010. In 2009, the number of customers served by international money transfer system UNIStream increased by 5.4% exceeding 5.84 mln., reported the press-centre of UNIStream. 

Summarizing last year work company’s executives noted that in tough market environment UNIStream managed to achieve good results with regard to almost all operating figures.

For example in spite of the large-scale market shrinkage the company managed to avoid turnover decline notable for its business. In 2009, transactions volume decreased only by 4.15% amounting to RUR 116.6 bln. vs RUR 121.6 bln. in 2008. Moreover, company’s experts say that this slight decrease was totally due to the average transfer amount decrement which had been caused by an objective factor, i.e. general decrease in customers’ solvency. Over the year the average transfer amount went down by 9%, equaling a bit more than RUR 19,900. However the system gained its popularity among its customers.

At the same time the number of customers grew in the 4-th quarter of 2009 by more than 12% vs. October and November of 2008, reaching 1.63 mln. The turnover for this period totaled RUR 31.3 bln.

Notwithstanding the difficult situation in the market not only did UNIStream continued to run all of its projects in 2009 but also even managed to drastically increase its operating figures in these twelve months.

“We worked hard to develop the network in Russia, CIS and other foreign countries. We were the first system in the domestic market which managed to implement an unprecedented project aimed at creating a unified national system incorporating operational outlets and QIWI terminals. This was possible due to the active system integration into the e-payments sector in general and considerable success in working out exclusive and effective IT –solutions”, said UNIStream CEO Souren Hayriyan and added that the company ended 2009 with 190,000 service points including terminals. There is not a single services provider with such a network today.

The number of service points in Russia (excluding terminals and including own ones) in early 2010 exceeded 2,700 and in CIS – more than 13,000.

He remarked that for UNIStream 2009 was the year when the provider showed itself as a major international player.

“We steadily developed our partnership relations in such important transfer routes as Asia, including China and progressed significantly in the EU market where our own networks gained popularity in the UK and Cyprus. In 2009, our subsidiaries started to work in Greece and Germany”, said Mr. Hayriyan.

“While we will further enhance our position in Russia and CIS we also intend to make a major breakthrough on the international level, taking active part in developing main money transfer routes such as Europe, the USA, China, India and focusing also on such perspective regions as Soutn-Eastern Asia and Oceania”.

Mr. Hayriyan observed that already in late 2009 the market showed the first signs of buoyancy and provided the macroeconomic situation improves further, the money transfer market can recover at higher rates than other economic segments.

“This allows us to talk about new opportunities emerging for us as a major international player “, he said.