OREANDA-NEWS. From today, the owners of a debit or credit card issued by a Russian bank can instantly transfer funds from their bank account to their Yandex.Money account. In addition to a simple, safe and easy way to help friends or family, the users of Yandex.Money now have a convenient instrument for contributing to a chosen charity or supporting an action or cause.

To top up their Yandex.Money balance from their bank card, the user does not need to link the card to their Yandex.Money account, or use a cash point, or fiddle with the settings on their online banking page. All they need to do is simply log on to their Yandex.Money page, choose the option to top-up their Yandex.Money account from a bank card, enter the card number and verify the details using a four-digit code from a text message sent to their mobile phone. Transferring funds from a bank card to Yandex.Money is instant and costs 49 roubles per transaction.

“Internet payments have recently been growing in popularity as a way for people to transfer money to each other,” says Jane Zavalishina, Chief Executive Officer at Yandex.Money. “For example, last year the volume of transfers between individual accounts grew by 50 percent. The proportion of cashless account top-ups also grew markedly. One of the main reasons is the growing popularity of crowdfunding, whereby people pool funds for some purpose. Also, the number of people willing to make electronic payments over the internet has reached a critical mass. For such users, the simplest and easiest way to add funds to an account is with a bank card – and now they can do it.”

Since 2008, Yandex.Money has been actively developing products that allow users to convert e-money into other forms of cashless payments and back again. Currently, Yandex.Money users can transfer funds from their e-money accounts to their bank accounts anywhere in the world (except the USA). In 2012, the e-money service introduced a free plastic card which can be used both for online and offline payments.