OREANDA-NEWS. May 21, 2012. In 2011, the total turnover of CyberPlat® payment system had increased by 20% and comprised more than USD 6.5 billion.

CyberPlat® payment system estimates its share of the Russian payment acceptance market as 21%. At the same time, CyberPlat® does not work with those electronic payment systems which effect money transfers between anonymous senders and recipients. CyberPlat’s operations follow strict international standards of safety and financial transparency of conducting payment transactions.

CyberPlat®, the first Russian electronic payment system, was established in 1997. The first online payment was effected to the benefit of Garant-Park company on March 18, 1998, and the first payment in favour of a cellular communications operator — Beeline — was effected on August 12, 1998. For more than 13 years of operation in the electronic payment market, CyberPlat® has been showing a dynamic and stable growth of the payment acceptance network, the number of providers in which favour the payments are accepted, as well as its key business performance indicators as a whole.

Payment acceptance network

In 2011, CyberPlat® payment system was building up its leadership by the scope of its international global payment acceptance network which comprised 640,000 outlets by the beginning of 2012, having added 260,000 new payment acceptance outlets.

The number of payment acceptance outlets in the Russian Federation and CIS connected to CyberPlat® payment system had exceeded 460,000, having increased by 150,000 outlets or nearly 50%. The unique density of coverage in Russia and CIS countries makes carrying out payments convenient and comfortable for users of CyberPlat® and saves them much time.

At year-end 2011, the share of banking organizations in the turnover of CyberPlat® payment system had reached about 50% of, the shares of retail chains and payment terminals had comprised approximately 25%.

Client base

Steady and dynamic business growth became possible due to connection to CyberPlat® of new networks of payment terminals, trading and dealer companies, as well as branches, offices and ATM networks of numerous credit institutions.

In 2011, CyberPlat® payment system continued to develop active cooperation with leading Russian banks — the number of credit institutions, members of CyberPlat® system, had comprised more than 250 banks by the end of the accounting period.

The largest banks, that started cooperation with CyberPlat® payment system in 2011, were the VTB24, Tatfondbank, OTP Bank and Bank Saint Petersburg.

In the accounting period CyberPlat® payment system was strengthening business with its partners — the largest retail banks of the country: Sberbank, Bank of Moscow, Russian Agricultural Bank, TransCreditBank, Alfa-Bank, Russian Standard Bank, National Bank TRUST, Sobinbank, Rossgostrakh Bank, SMP Bank, Zapsibcombank, Sudostroitelny Bank and many others.

In 2011, CyberPlat® payment system had ensured payment acceptance through cashiers at the SMARTS shops. CyberPlat® payment system is a long-standing partner of SMARTS and ensures a significant part of incomings of subscriber payments through its payment acceptance network. In 2011, at the new stage of cooperation, the SMARTS subscriber service outlets, in their turn, had become parts of CyberPlat® payment acceptance system — this enables to offer new manifold opportunities to the customers of SMARTS, improves the quality of their servicing, as well as increases the profitability of the SMARTS outlets’ activity.

In 2011, CyberPlat® payment system was selected as the main provider for mobile commerce services of the largest mobile operators. A wide range of providers available in CyberPlat® payment system is used within the Easy Payment service of MTS and the RURU payment service of Beeline.

Partners of CyberPlat® payment system primarily are large companies with steadily growing turnovers and a high level of technological and corporative culture — whether they are retail and terminal networks or companies, specializing in providing such services as mobile communications, commercial television, telecommunication services, as well as housing and utility and power supply companies, and many others.

Providers

In 2011, CyberPlat® payment system had introduced new opportunities in the payment acceptance market and increased the number of service providers registered in the system to 1,700.

In the accounting period, CyberPlat® payment acceptance network had launched the service of replenishing Visa cards issued by any Russian issuing bank.

Technologically, this process is carried out via a special gateway of Visa in CyberPlat® system, which allows transmitting data on the operation of replenishing a particular card to the issuing bank almost instantaneously. The duration of crediting funds directly to the card account depends on the bank that issued this card and this process can be either immediate or take from two to four days.

Replenishment of Visa cards is possible through the networks of cash-in payment terminals and ATMs operating through CyberPlat® system where this service is represented. In order to replenish any Visa card it is enough to input the card number using the interface of a payment terminal or an ATM, and insert the necessary amount of money (there may be restrictions on the amount in accordance with applicable law).

This service is highly convenient both for Visa cardholders and their relatives or friends — if necessary, it is easy to provide the required amount of money by simply replenishing the Visa card of your loved one. The new opportunity provided by CyberPlat® company and Visa payment system is in high demand for the purpose of regular credit repayments — credit recipients who are holders of Visa cards are released from the necessity of visiting bank offices and are able to refill the card account at CyberPlat® payment acceptance outlets, located in the neighborhood — stores, drugstores, gas filling stations, etc.

In 2011, CyberPlat® payment system had put into effect the payment acceptance for gas on a national scale. The joint project of Gazprom Mezhregiongaz LLC, SOBINBANK JSC and CyberPlat® payment system enables residents of nearly every single Russian region to make payments for natural gas via the distribution network of CyberPlat® payment system.

Previously this service wasn’t available to the public on a national scale.

In the accounting period, CyberPlat®, the largest Russian payment acceptance network, had enabled an opportunity to pay for the services of Groupon, a worldwide leader in the market of services for group discounts, and Zepter, a global manufacturer of consumer goods.

Money transfers

2011 was the year of a large-scale use of Money Transfer System Integrator (MTSI), a unique product developed by CyberPlat® experts, in the money transfer market.

The service enabling to work with many money transfer systems through a "single window" had been originally developed to be used in the banking segment. In 2011, it was used by other partners of the payment system — retail outlets, mobile shops, and operators of terminal networks. The use of MTSI greatly, i.e. tenfold, increases the effectiveness of banks’ activity in the field of money transfers due to sharp cost reduction along with expanding their client base. For example, the costs of a bank operating three money transfer systems and changing over to the Integrator will be reduced three times and, thus, the client coverage will be increased more than three times. Introduction of MTSI is a unique opportunity for banks, retail outlets and payment terminal networks to cover the maximum of the money transfer market at minimal costs.

MTSI has been successfully operated and maintained in Russia since April, 2008 and, by the end of 2011, allowed sending transfers through twelve systems including UNISTREAM, Anelik, Bystraya Pochta (Fast Mail), Leader, InterExpress, Asia-Express, Allure, CONTACT, PrivateMoney, Migom, IntelExpress and one of the major international money transfer systems. Several other money transfer systems are being connected.

For an effective entry into the extremely profitable market of money transfers, it is necessary to cover all potential customers wherever possible. Since none of the money transfer systems in any of CIS countries has a market share equal to more than 20%, then, for the full coverage of the clientele, it is necessary to cooperate with all large money transfer systems — according to calculations made by CyberPlat® experts, not less than with nine systems.

In order to work with twelve money transfer systems without using MTSI, any CyberPlat® partner would have to do the following:
conclude and maintain 12 contracts with money transfer systems;
maintain the necessary level of balances of 12 correspondent accounts with settlement banks of these systems or allocate 12 deposits to operate them;
purchase 12 servers;
install 12 payment interfaces (gateways) — by the number of systems;
install 12 different and quite complex software packages — by the number of systems;
and, most importantly, teach the tellers to operate 12 interfaces simultaneously, which is simply impossible — in practice, even an experienced specialist will make a great number of mistakes while operating more than three systems.

Having implemented the MTSI solutions, any actual or potential partner of CyberPlat® payment system will be enabled to do the following:
operate all money transfer systems under a single agreement;
maintain only one correspondent or settlement account for operating all money transfer systems;
use only one server;
install only one software package;
create only one easy-to-develop technological gateway;
obtain a new high-yielding and marketable service;
expand the client base due to the new service.

MTSI enables CyberPlat® partners that have implemented this tool to operate an unlimited number of money transfer systems using a single interface. MTSI can be installed in retail cash-desks, bank branches and operating cash desks, Internet-Bank-Client system, ATMs and payment terminals.

Customers can choose one out of several money transfer systems that are most popular in Russia and CIS countries. The choice of a particular system depends either on the geography of the transfer (networks of different money transfer systems have different coverage), or on the size of the transfer fee (different rates for different systems).

The MTSI version for payment terminals and ATMs allows customers to use these devices for transferring funds any time at their convenience after a single registration at a bank branch. This way the bank branches and retail cash-desks are relieved from queues.

MTSI is easily integrated with "Client-Bank" systems and provides bank clients with an opportunity to send money transfers using their home, office or portable computer.

The widespread implementation of MTSI in the networks of CyberPlat® payment system’s partners makes sending of money transfers a comfortable and convenient operation and ensures a new level of customer service quality in close proximity outlets.

Special versions of Money Transfer System Integrator (MTSI) for cash registers, personal computers and payment terminals are currently offered by CyberPlat® payment system to its partners to increase the turnover and profitability of their businesses. No financial or significant organizational expenses are required to start accepting money transfers — it is enough to update the existing software remotely — depending on the type of the equipment used.

Terminal business

A great number of payment terminal networks, as they develop and enlarge, prefer to operate a payment system which does not have a terminal network of its own and hence cannot be a competitor to their business a priori. For this particular reason, in 2011 many payment terminal networks, operating through other payment systems, changed over to taking the service from CyberPlat®.

In 2011, the payment system was pronounced the winner in the tender for installation of payment terminals in MTS retail network in Moscow and Central and Volga Federal Districts.

This was the continuation of the global partnership between CyberPlat® and MTS, which as early as 2009 had selected CyberPlat® as a platform for payment acceptance through cashiers of its retail network. High quality of services, technology excellence, speed and reliability of CyberPlat® payment system provides MTS retail customers with the best service offering on payment transfers as at the cashiers, as through payment terminals.

Customers that use CyberPlat® software have an opportunity to choose service providers in whose favour they can accept payments. In this case, CyberPlat® payment system, unlike its competitors, does not impose upon its clients any servicing or services which they do not need.

One of the key advantages of Cyberplat® payment system’s software for terminals, which the company updated and improved in 2011, is its versatility and simplicity of installation and running of the said software. Availability of public codes to the developed programs is CyberPlat® software’s distinctive feature which attracts major clients.

CyberPlat® software is widely used by operators of terminal networks, because unlike the software of competing systems, it allows any modifications with due respect to the use and location of payment terminals, and offers the operators an opportunity of promoting their own and not an outside brand, thus, without imposing any unnecessary financial products upon them.

Besides, the software for payment terminals developed by CyberPlat® experts enables the payment system’s dealers, at their will, to arrange for connection of any local service providers, e.g. local or regional Internet and cable TV providers, housing and utility companies, child daycare centres, schools, etc. Such an opportunity not only ensures additional income but also increases the popular appeal of CyberPlat® sales network due to a wide range of services rendered.

Technological base

Hystorically, CyberPlat® is the first payment system and since its establishment the system has been retaining leadership by the level of processing security. By the results of a complex monitoring of its largest partners in accepting payments in 2010, the largest mobile network operator MTS recognized CyberPlat® as the most reliable processing system. In the accounting period CyberPlat® confirmed more than once its technological leading position in the field of electronic payments and banking technologies clearly demonstrating the highest processing security to the market.

Load Testing

In 2011, for the first time ever in the industry CyberPlat® had provided its working and potential partners with a service to do load testing. Load testing service of CyberPlat® processing system demonstrates the ultimate performance and redundancy features. Anyone can check the system’s load testing which is available at http://loadtest.cyberplat.com.

Thanks to its technological leadership, CyberPlat® payment system enables processing more than 1,400 financial transactions per second with a fourteen fold stability factor to maximum peak loads on the system.

The testing is run right on the production system, loading its additional operational resources, which are free from current transactions. The connection to an external provider is a program simulated right in CyberPlat® system. Each testing is displayed by an interactive graph and the results of current performance measurement. Load testing is performed from an external system, that is, the performance is shown with account taken of the availability of CyberPlat® services in the Internet. The processing of 1 million transactions for load testing takes approximately 13 minutes and 40 seconds.

Operational Safety

Such unprecedented productivity is complemented by absolute safety of financial transactions. While making one transaction, the system performs up to 16 operations, authenticated with an electronic digital signature and made with the use of secure methods of transmitting data via Internet channels, including checking of the availability of clients’ telephone numbers or personal accounts in billing systems of service providers, identification and authorization of payment acceptance outlets, and other operations.

This technology ensures absolute security of financial transactions and minimizes the number of erroneous payments. For 13 years of operation, there has not been a single case of hacking a transaction in CyberPlat® system.

Fail-safety

The capabilities of CyberPlat® significantly outrun the most rigid technical requirements of the payment acceptance market by all parameters — the fault tolerance indicator of the system exceeds that of the closest competitors several times. Such high indicators of the system’s reliability are determined by several factors.

Firstly, CyberPlat® payment system is based on two GRID-connected and geographically dispersed processing centers. Such architecture of the payment system’s operation provides high failure tolerance of CyberPlat® and its independence from the majority of force majeure circumstances.

Secondly, CyberPlat® payment system places the highest demands on the software which guarantees high quality and performance of the system as a whole.

Combating fraud

In 2011, partners of CyberPlat® payment system obtained a new secure tool for counteracting hackers. The technical solution allowing receipt of information on the state of dealers’ accounts in the course of each payment transaction is able to minimize the losses of CyberPlat’s dealers in cases of theft of system access keys by hackers.

The processing of CyberPlat® payment system is traditionally notable for its high standards of speed, reliability and security of financial transactions. However, partners of the payment system, and there are thousands of them, do not always have a sufficient level of security within their own information systems. CyberPlat® payment system helps to minimize the risks involved on the side of partners by launching new technology solutions.

Mass mailing of malicious programs with Trojan viruses has become more frequent lately. The virus which penetrated the dealer’s computer can gain administrator account of CyberPlat’s dealer and send login and password to spoofers’ server who can thus acquire access to the dealer’s funds. Many cases are also known when hackers sent out letters with viruses on behalf of the payment systems’ staff members (so-called ‘fishing’).

It sometimes happens that an inexperienced or overly credulous employee opens an email message sent by attackers and thus activates the sent virus which "spies" on the system access private key and the code phrase while being in the computer, and sends them to hackers. It is not unusual that employees who work or worked in the company yield to the temptation of gaining "fast" money. They know the company’s work from inside and have a chance to get hold of confidential information.

Having received the access key and the code phrase, the attacker may start to withdraw money from the dealer’s settlement account in the system to the accounts with various service providers controlled by the attacker for the purpose of its further conversion into cash.

The new service of CyberPlat® allows detecting such actions virtually in the real time mode. Getting information on the amount of the cash balance in the dealer’s account along with the operation information on each next payment allows dealers to instantly see the difference between the effected payments and promptly review all suspicious transactions.

The advantage of this service is seen in the fact that CyberPlat® payment system processes payments in the real time mode. Only the online way of receiving information on the state of accounts concurrently with transactions will feasibly prevent the theft of funds from dealers’ accounts.