LONDON, 23rd May 2013: Skrill, one of Europe’s largest online payment providers, has announced a new partnership with Russian payments service Yandex.Money. The collaboration will enable Skrill to expand coverage of the Russian payments market while allowing Yandex.Money to be integrated as a payment option for Skrill’s 140,000 merchants worldwide, offering a proven local payment solution to a global customer base.

According to research company TNS Global, Yandex.Money is Russia’s most popular payment service: 84 per cent of Russians are familiar with it and 17 per cent use Yandex.Money to make payments at least once every six months. Currently Yandex.Money is accepted by over 20,000 online stores in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

Mohamed Omaizat, VP Group Corporate Development at Skrill, commented: “Partnering with Yandex.Money will provide Skrill’s expansive global merchant base with access to consumers in Russia. It will also enable us to grow our global payment network even further with another popular local payment option, ensuring we stay at the forefront of the digital payments market.”

Maria Gracheva, Business Development Director at Yandex.Money, said: “We want to give our users an opportunity to pay with Yandex.Money in any internet store anywhere in the world. Some of the internet’s most popular services, such as Skype, Facebook and McAfee, are already using Yandex.Money for payments in Russia. Thanks to our collaboration with Skrill, any internet store can now join up with us – particularly those stores that are interested in attracting customers from Russia and other CIS countries.”