• Section: Money Guide - Category: Invest Online
• Written by Arthut Salnikov

The first payment system in the Russian part of Internet is WebMoney. Since the beginning of work in Russia in November, 1998, the turn of the WebMoney system (hereinafter referred to as WM) has been growing, and, most probably, will continue to grow with the speed reaching 100 % a year (the statistics doesn't say about the period before 2001). For more than 7 years of work, the system turned from an unknown group of enthusiasts into a popular tool for Internet money transfers. Even those people who for the first time face the necessity to use electronic means to transfer money, have heard about WM.
Further consideration of business of exchange offices of Internet of currencies is tightly linked to the WM system. The WM system is a 'landmark' Internet currency, which (in particular, the commissions) all competitors in Russia are guided by and by example of which it is possible to consider the development of Russian payment systems.

It is necessary to note that Intern

et currencies (which are called payment systems, as well) began to appear in the USA approximately 10 years ago (the E-Gold system appeared in 1996). Within the course of their development, they began to take more and more means from the turnover of then dominating kind of payments via credit cards through the Internet. When it became clear that the business of creation of own electronic currency was profitable, more and more various Internet currencies started to appear and spawn; nowadays there are hundreds of them in the USA.
In the author's opinion, the development of the Russian Internet currencies market lags behind the USA market for 3-5 years, though even now in Russia it is possible to easily find at least 15-20 various kinds of Internet currencies (not speaking about game money of online games, which are also bought and sold). The development of the WM system of payments generated a lot of small businesses, which are not connected with the system. One of the first to try to make money on WM were so-called autoexchangers, where users were offered to exchange one kind of electronic currency for another online (another kind of Internet currency which was used at that time was E-Gold; PayPal also existed, but autoexchangers did not work with it). These companies were not distinguished by reliability, and it was regularly heard that 'this or that autoexchanger had been split open' (now autoexchangers are much more reliable). Till 2001 it was possible to exchange WM for cash or buy WM only in the official exchange office of WebMoney, located in Sadovnicheskaya street in the center of Moscow. 2001 was watershed; WM went out from Sadovnicheskaya street and began its expansion to all directions of the world. First private exchange offices started to appear; they offered not only to exchange WebMoney and E-Gold, but also to receive money transfers, then just starting to gain popularity. We shall not enlarge upon the point who was the pioneer in the business of exchange offices of Internet currencies, since it is a questionable matter and there is no common opinion. We shall note only that the business started in the capital of the country, in Moscow, and later in St. Petersburg. Alongside with the growth of the turnover of the WM system there was a gradual decrease in commissions of private exchange offices of Internet currencies. In Moscow, first of all, because of low commission fee of the WM official exchange office (1,5 % for withdrawal and 1 % placing, the same as now), private exchange offices never took commission more than 3 %, and even that very quickly lowered to the rate of 2 % for withdrawal. That rate remained until 2004, when exchange offices of Internet currencies began to experiment its reduction.

Now to set the commission of WM at the rate of 1,5 % is not a problem (we offer 1 %). The same tendency is, in general, observed for other kinds of electronic currencies, for example, E-Gold, where the cost of withdrawal decreased from 10 % in 2001-2002 to 4-5

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