Russia’s Yandex Money Adds Installment Payments to Mobile Payment Service

April 5, 2024         By: Steven Anderson

For some people, installment payments are about the only way to get anything new. A little here, a little there, and eventually, you have a new television or a new couch that you only paid about 20 percent more—or more—for than you would have at retail by the time the finance charges are done. For Yandex Money—roughly the equivalent of PayPal in Russia—users, it’s just gotten a little easier to pay on time, as it added a new installment feature to its operations called Pay in Parts.

The new feature, found in the Yandex Checkout system, allows online stores to allow customers to pay for goods and services alike in installments rather than in one lump sum. Users will need to fill out a form to get access, and once concluded, the user can start making installment payments. Thirty days after the initial purchase, the payments are automatically debited from a pre-established payment source.

With over 76,000 stores and services around the world running on Yandex Checkout, there’s a lot of potential for something like this to cover almost every waterfront.

Yandex Money’s head of payment business Yulia Gorelova noted “Pay in Parts is useful when a person does want to make an unplanned, spontaneous purchase, for example, during a sales period, but is unable to spend the required amount of money. The desired product or service can be purchased immediately after the customer submits the form.”

While the nature of installment payments for all but the most major purchases may seem a bridge too far for some, for others, it’s the best way to get hands on certain things that would otherwise be unaffordable. Anyone targeting that market, therefore, would want to get in on the action, and Pay in Parts could be a good way to get more Yandex Money users shopping even when the cash isn’t immediately on hand. Yandex Money has certainly made installment payments more accessible, and especially in the online shopping scene where that advantage isn’t often available.

Online shopping just got one edge back from the brick-and-mortar scene, and Yandex Money’s new development should have some retailers very concerned.