Webmoney Interview With Peter Darakhvelidze

"We are always opened both to the new markets and to the new possibilities and to prospects. And we are glad to share our experience, technologies and views with new in partner"

Peter Darakhvelidze, Webmoney Transfer

In the past few years, Webmoney Transfer´s online payment products have experienced dramatic growth around the globe. Webmoney´s successful policy seems to be "offer easy to use payment products that fill a market need."

Employees of the company seek to expand their online business, not strangle it with over regulation. Today they are the largest and most used digital currency in the world with last year´s customer transactions exceeding $3.3 billion in USD value.

Webmoney is quietly out conquering the globe. How do they do it? I had a chance to ask Peter Darakhvelidze, Director of Corporate Affairs for WebMoney Transfer, a few questions and gain his insight on Internet business and Webmoney products. I´d like to thank Peter for taking time to answer my questions and here is the interview:

Congratulations Peter on reaching 5 Million users!

(Q) Are you signing up new users at a faster pace now than years before?

Yes, the number of new users signing up daily is growing quite fast. A majority of them are coming from "new" territories and countries outside ex-USSR borders.

(Q) Why did Webmoney co-sponsor the Digital Money Forum this year?

We want to tell the "western" financial community about e-money nature and legal model here in Russia and how they can cooperate with us and expand their activities to this part of the world.

(Q) Do you see borders when discussing Webmoney business across the Internet?

Internet has no boundaries or geographical borders. And from this perspective e-money is an ideal tool for working globally.

(Q) Where are the fastest growing retail markets for Webmoney products? (what countries or regions)

Russia is of course the fastest but new regions, like South-East Asia has huge potential.

(Q) Around the globe, in what regions is Webmoney now looking to for expansion?

First of all – South-East Asia

(Q) Are Webmoney products being widely used in online games (MMORPG) ?

Yes, of course it is. MMORG´s target audience all over the world are teenagers or unbanked youngsters.

(Q) What is the most popular method to Top-Up a WM account? How much of your total funding does that method capture?

In Russia and Ukraine so called "scratch" cards and top-up kiosks (cash-in terminals) share 40 % of the top-up market, remaining 60% are taken by postal money orders, bank wires and cash-ins via authorized exchangers and funding partners.

(Q) Are all of your Exchange Agencies ´verified merchants´ and do all of them hold at least a WM Personal Passport?

Yes, in order to get in our Megastock Catalogue and on the WebMoney Transfer website. All merchants should have a WM Passport and sign an additional agreement. If someone performs exchange activities without it and in case of any suspicious transaction,he would need to prove to our Arbitration Service that he didn´t initiate it and is not a beneficiary of these funds himself. So from this perspective, merchant passport gives certain safety.

(Q) Do you ever allow any business to operate through Webmoney without at least a Personal Passport and verification on who they are?

Initially, anyone can start operating without any formalities[alias passport], by just publishing Purses details at the web site. But in order to use numerous additional features like for example automated interfaces, promotion and many others they need to be verified merchants. This is the way we protect both ourselves and our users from potential fraud.

(Q) Has the mobile Webmoney business been expanding as rapidly as the online transactions?

Yes, it is growing quite fast.

(Q) Approximately what percentage of all Webmoney transactions occur through mobile devices (telepat) ?

Currently it is about 10%. But we are now about to launch a new project with some mobile operators that would allow to enlarge this figure.

(Q) What are the financial limitations on a new alias passport account? I understand I can start using a WM account immediately after installing the Keeper software and verifying my email, but how much can I send or receive into the account the fist day? Are there limits?

There are no limits. For Keeper Light you just need to verify your cell phone number via SMS

(Q) Is the ´Credit´ purse (WMC) and that part of the Webmoney business popular with users?

Yes, there are credit.webmoney.ru and debt.wmtransfer.com, where almost 2 000 individuals and merchants give loans and much more users who ask for credit and borrow funds. Amount of issued credits already exceeds USD 20,000 daily.

(Q) What is Webmoney working on right now for the future? What new products can we expect to see from Webmoney in the year ahead?

Follow the news) We announce new services only after we launch them live) [https://newsblog.wmtransfer.com/asp/wmtransfer.asp]

(Q) Can you identify a specific part of the Webmoney business or a feature that your new users flocking to?

Perhaps not. Business grows quite even.

(Mark) I was looking at the Webmoney Geoservice (http://geo.wmtransfer.com/aspx/GeoMain.aspx) which shows an amazing number of brick and mortar locations which allow walk in funding of a Webmoney account. I see just over 35,000 locations worldwide. Amazing! However, only a handful of these (less than 5%) were located outside of the Russian region.

(Q) In places like Russia, Kazakhstan & Ukraine the ´cash to digital´ funding is a great feature. I wish I lived there. Why is this not popular all over the globe?

It requires certain efforts and a lot of time. We are constantly looking for new partners all over the globe to enlarge our network. In States and in Europe it happens because of the legislative limitations – business of a small or average size is usually afraid of services without licenses, that are clear for them , like for example bank or FSA license. On the contrary, number of cash-to digital (and vice versa ) exchangers in Asia is growing really fast.

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