A few days ago a seminar on Internet commerce was held in Moscow to familiarize Russian businessmen with specific methods of this technology by the example of one-year long operation of the Ozone Internet shop. Another goal of the event was the announcement of a new credit cards services system, dubbed Assist (www.assist.ru). The seminar was arranged by Platina bank, Reksoft company and Internet Payments Systems group.

Vasily Vyatkin, a representative of the Platina bank, sketched the basic scenarios for development of Internet business in Russia. He put special attention to Internet shops, which accept payments by means of the CyberPlat online system. This system was specially developed by Platina bank for Russian e-commerce market.

As reported by Vasily Vyatkin, electronic bookstores are currently one of the most interesting and popular fields of Internet business. He believes the Ozone online bookstore to be the most successful trade project in Russian Internet. Unlike the majority of Russian e-shops, it does really work. The most popular way of payment for its books is credit card payment, which constitute about 45% share of all purchases. This is explained, first of all, by the fact that more than 40% of Ozone customers are located outside Russia.

According to recent poll carried out by the company, 40% of present and potential Internet shoppers consider books as one of the preferable types of goods to be bought. The same share of customers, namely 40%, voted for ticket reservation via Internet - the service which has a vast potential to be realized. This service is available in Russia via Transinform webserver, which also uses CyberPlat payment functions.

Demos company, a well-known Russian Internet service provider, allows its customers to pay for dial-up services in on-line mode. The poll revealed that 34% of them consider this opportunity as a convenient and attractive one. So this service also appears to be rather popular in the near future.

The number of e-shops specializing in products like computer hardware, software and parts is increasing, too. The X-Mir shop in Moscow was quoted as one of the most successful examples in this business.

Rapid development of information services market results in increasing number of services in the field of commercial access to various information. Another specific kind of e-payments is payment for municipal services, phone services, etc. By the way, Infoart notes, this is the service which tops the list - 50% of respondents quoted it as a priority one. This possibility is also offered by CyberPlat system.

It follows from the above consideration that a certain amount of offerings does already exist in Russian e-market. Despite its scale is very different from that of the Western market, Russian businesses also rely on Internet as a tool for minimizing overhead expenses and optimizing their business processes. E-commerce in Russia will certainly go forward, yet its development will be highly sensitive to market demand, namely, to payable demand.

One of the key things to put forward this payable demand is building a payment system which would be optimal to the customer's viewpoint. The CyberPlat system was said to be the first payment mechanism which really works at Russian e-commerce market. The users of the system - both e-shops and their customers - got an opportunity to make payments on-line, using credit cards and bank accounts. A reliable security mechanism based on digital signature technique provided the high degree of protection an allowed to make large payments. Should the customer waive the performed payment, it is considered to be the bank's business risk.

The next stage is Assist payment system, developed jointly by Platina bank and Reksoft company. It is integrated with CyberPlat back office and provides credit card payments using MOTO (mail order telephone order) technique. Unlike CyberPlat, which requires registration procedure and specialized client software, Assist is a simplified solution from end-user's viewpoint. It utilizes the conventional Internet browser as a client software, and it does not need user's registration in the system. It was specially underscored that the system is developed in strict correspondence with Russian legislation, so all payments done by means of Assist are absolutely legal. To the e-shop, functionality of the system allows to accept various kinds of payments, including VISA, EC/MC, Diners Club, JCB, and AmEx cards. On top of that, the user may pay for goods and services from his personal account at Internet provider.

The developers of the Assist system paid as much attention as possible to security of payments and protection against swindlers. All confidential information is transferred and stored in encrypted form, with the bank being its only recipient. On-line authorization provides automatic elimination of generated and not-payable credit cards.

It was specially noted at the seminar that currently the Russian market of payment systems does utilize virtually all Internet payment technologies known worldwide. This includes digital money, credit card services, club systems, and Internet banking.

Source: InfoArt News Agency

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