Yandex.Money CEO: Crypto money not to replace fiat money soon

MOSCOW, Mar 19 (PRIME) -- Cryptocurrencies will not replace fiat money or banking cards any time soon, Ivan Glazachev, general director of Russian online payment service Yandex.Money, said on March 17.

“I don’t believe that cryptocurrencies will shortly stand in line with fiat money or banking cards in settlements because of the fact that for such daily settlements, the prime cost and speed of transactions are too high with cryptocurrencies,” Glazachev said.

Yandex.Money as a payment provider will be ready to handle operations with cryptocurrencies as soon as the central bank legitimizes them. In the coming years, cryptocurrencies will be wider used by professional market participants. “The technology will find its place in the sphere of savings and investment,” the executive said.

Russia is an advanced country in terms of payment services. People are ready to spend more and more money in the Internet.

“The amount of an average online payment is rising -- s payment experience widens, confidence in e-payments grows, this is why users are ready to spend more and more in the Internet,” Glazachev said.

An average check in Russia in the pre-holiday period spiked 85% in 2018 on the year.

The smartphone will be a universal means of payment until microchips are implanted into human bodies, Glazachev said.

“If we dream a bit, an alternative to the smartphone could be a technology liberating us from the necessity to use anything at all to transfer information and payments, a kind of a chip implanted into a human body,” he said. “Since there are none as such, the smartphone is versatile, and the future belongs to it.”

Despite experiences with other payment devices, like rings or bracelets, the smartphone is more popular since it has online and offline payment technologies.

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