The Webmoney Purse, One Size Does Not Fit All (part 6)

In late 1998 & early 1999 the Webmoney team was hard at work perfecting the new secure online payment system. The services offered by this system began to satisfy the massive local demand for non bank payments left by the 1998 Russian banking collapse. An important point to understand in the development of the Webmoney purse is the fact that after the 1998 banking collapse U.S. dollars were widely accepted across Russian. At that time, the US Dollar was a sort of alternative reserve currency and all local merchants, vendors and businesses accepted the dollar alongside the ruble. Consequently, the first Internet Webmoney purse created for local Russian consumers was denominated in U.S. Dollars (WMZ). Not long after that, a Webmoney purse backed by Russian Rubles (WMR) also emerged. From that first day of business in 1998 the dollar purse (WMZ) has been very popular with local consumers.

In case you are not familiar with the term ´purse´ this is simply the label for an electronic account. Some companies call them wallets or folders, but on the Webmoney Transfer system, this type of account is called a purse. It is important to note that because each purse is a separate legal entity, operating across various jurisdictions, the Webmoney Transfer software does not support any movement of funds from one purse to another. (If you have $100USD in your WMZ purse you cannot instantly convert that to Rubles and move the value over to your WMR purse, such transfers are not supported from within the Webmoney software. This type of transaction is considered to be an exchange operation and can only be carried out using an independent exchange service which will charge you a small fee)

After creating a Webmoney account (WMID), a user may create as many purses as needed for that account. A new purse may be labeled ´My Payments´, another entitled ´My Saving´ and still another called ´miscellaneous online payouts´. The name which appears on a purse is totally up to the user. (you may call it ´Fido´s Bones´ if you like!)

Unlike other popular digital currency accounts, such as GoldMoney, where one account size fits all, the Webmoney Transfer system offers various currency purses. Each denomination is different and created to target a particular jurisdiction. Each purse generally targets a specific group of geographic users.

For Webmoney purses, the assets backing the digital units in any purse and the representation of asset value is separately guaranteed by the local business entity behind that specific purse. (The Guarantor or Underwriter, see below) This could be a a big reason why the GoldMoney web site shows the audited financial assets backing GoldMoney, but the Webmoney Transfer site does not display how the financial assets behind the various purses. Each purse has a guarantor company responsible for the auditing and governance of those assets. The Webmoney Transfer system is simply the software platform that connects purses to users. Webmoney Transfer holds NO assets and accepts no funds. Each separate purse Guarantor is the proper legal entity for that jurisdiction and controls the governance for the creation of those digital units.

• WMR — equivalent to RUR ( r-purse), Rubles
• WMZ — equivalent to USD (z-purse), U.S. Dollars
• WME — equivalent to EUR (e-purse), Euro
• WMU — equivalent to UAH (u-purse), Ukrainian Hryvnia
• WMB — equivalent to Belorussian Roubles (b-purse)
• WMY — equivalent to Uzbekistan Soms (y-purse)
• WM-C and WM-D — WMZ equivalent for transactions on C- and D-purses
• WMG — equivalent of Gold (G-purse) grams and Troy ounces.

Each type of WM unit is issued by a Guarantee Agency (the Guarantor) which is a separate entity, that stores and controls the currency release, fixes equivalent exchange rates, provides legal environment and defines rules & terms of use as per local legislation in force.

• The Guarantor for WMR transactions is "WMR" ltd, a company, representing WebMoney Transfer in the Russian federation. Moscow, Russia WMR turnover is governed by the agreement on using Checks in the electronic form.
• The underwriter for WMZ transactions is Amstar Holdings Limited, S.A. Republic of Panama. WMZ turnover is governed by the Terms of use of WMZ Certificate.
• The underwriter WME is Netec Financial ltd, Correspondence address: Cyprus. site: http://wmeuro.eu/ WME turnover is governed by the agreement on using Checks in WME electronic form.
• The underwriter for WMU transactions is Ukrainian Guarantee Agency llc, Kiev, Ukraine. WMU turnover is governed by the Claim assignment and accounting agreement.
• The underwriter for WMY transactions is Tillo-Garant llc. Uzbekistan. WMY turnover is governed by the agreement with WMY system underwriter.
• The underwriter for WMB transactions is WMB underwriter is Technobank PC, Minsk, Belorussia. WMB turnover is governed by the WMB underwriter agreement.
• The underwriter for WMG (WM Gold) transactions is WM Metals FZE, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. http://www.metdeal.com/, WMG turnover is governed by the storage agreement.

WMD is a title unit of WebMoney Transfer system that is WMZ equivalent for credit transactions kept track of at purses of D type. A purse of D type is used to keep record of received credits. purse of D type can be created only once and cannot be deleted. you can create a purse of D type only if you have a passport not lower than personal. WMD title units are actually promissory notes (obligations to transfer a respective amount of WMz title units by a maturity date) to creditor of system users who received a credit. The number of units at WMD purse corresponds to the total amount of WMZ, that must be transferred to the owner of WMD purse.

WMC is a WebMoney Transfer title unit that is a WMZ equivalent for credit transactions kept track of at purses of C type. a purse of C type is used to keep record of received credits.

During discussion with the company it was revealed that for a short period of time, when the Ruble purse WMR was first created, the digital units were backed by hand signed promissory notes. Shortly after the purses introduction, the guarantor moved to the ´Electronic Check´ and did away with the hand signed notes!

It still rings true that necessity is the mother of all invention.

Governance, Audits & DGC

Over the years, a key factor to the success of e-gold, GoldMoney & Pecunix might have been attributed to each company´s transparent governance models. While the U.S. Federal Reserve, a private company, has NEVER been audited and the U.S. Gold Reserves have not been publicly audited in over 60 years (see http://www.gata.org), successful Digital Currency companies have always provided up-to-date transparent stats on their operations. The assets backing digital currency units are regularly audited and the results publicly displayed on the company web sites.

All of the digital gold currencies mentioned above disclose corporate precious metal holdings including the actual bar numbers. These bullion holdings are audited by recognized professional third parties on a regular basis and this information, generally including scanned copies of the signed audits is available from their web sites.

Compared with these private digital currency companies, don´t you think it is strange that the U.S. Government´s Federal Reserve operation hides their transactions from Congress and the people of the United States?



Webmoney Transfer is no different from these other popular DGCs. Public disclosure of the company´s operating statistics are available from their web site. On the home page, the upper left hand corner always shows...

• Total number of accounts in the Webmoney system
• Total number of transactions for that day
• Active users
• New Registrations for that day

...plus this very important link, "Key Reasons to Trust Us". http://www.wmtransfer.com/eng/about/statistics/. This stats page opens the books on the two most popular purses, WMR (Ruble) and WMZ (USD). The information contained here includes:

• registrations in the System — number of registrations starting from the the System launch in November 1998 and up to now;
• turnover WMR/WMZ — total number of transactions between WM-Purses of the given type for the taken period of time;
• operations WMR/WMZ — number of operations between WM-purses of the given type for the taken period of time;
• new registrations — number of registrations for the taken period of time;

It is very important to recognize how the Webmoney Transfer system differs from other Digital Gold Currency systems. The WM statistics on display only represent account and transaction stats on users. Since the Webmoney Transfer operation is only the software platform which connects users and purses, there is NO financial asset information displayed for each different purse. Webmoney Transfer has no connection to the assets backing or issued by each purse. As previously discussed, each of the Underwriters, NOT Webmoney Transfer, is responsible for auditing the assets in each separate purse.