OREANDA-NEWS. Yandex.Money has released a new service for paying bills over the internet. Called Gorodskiye Platezhi – literally “City Payments” – it allows any user to pay their bills online, quickly and at any time, without even having to register on the site.

More than 30,000 Russian service providers are included. For each region, the most popular service providers are featured on the main page, while the others can be easily found by searching for their name or tax identification number. Wherever a user is located, they can take advantage of the service to pay bills for domestic and mobile phones, internet, utilities and many other services – even kindergartens and parking garages. Payments are commission-free for internet, TV and both domestic and mobile telephony, while payments for utilities and other services will be charged a commission of 1-2% of the payment value. Traffic fines are the only exception, carrying a flat 30-ruble commission.

For consumers, the new service is quicker and easier than paying bills the old-fashioned way – over the counter at a bank branch. Payments can be made from any bankcard or from a Yandex.Money electronic wallet. Those who wish to pay in cash may do so after entering the payment information on the service’s site; the service sends a payment code by e-mail or text message, and this code is all that a user needs to make a cash payment at Svyaznoi and Euroset salons or via a terminal accepting Yandex.Money payments.

“At present, a third of Russians don’t pay their utility bills on time: they don’t have time, or they forget; they’ve just paid one when another arrives in the mail and they have to go to the bank all over again,” said Jane Zavalishina, the Chief Executive Officer of Yandex.Money. “We set ourselves the ambitious task of providing Russians with a new, more convenient way to pay their bills. And we’re introducing this service not only for users of Yandex.Money, but for everyone.”

According to TNS data, only 13 percent of Russians currently use the internet to pay their utility bills. The new service will allow all users to switch over to settling accounts electronically.