Sberbank on Monday announced a partnership with Mail.ru Group's electronic payment service, Dengi@Mail.ru.
Visa and MasterCard holders who have Dengi@Mail.ru accounts will be able to put money into those accounts at any of Sberbank's more than 50,000 automated teller machines or payment terminals throughout Russia. No commissions will be charged for use of the service.
According to the Electronic Money Association, at the end of last year, there were 30 million active e-money users in Russia, with e-money accounts totaling 70 billion rubles ($2.5 billion).
Mail.ru Group owns the Dengi@Mail.ru system, as well as 100 percent of the Mail.ru portal, 100 percent of the ICQ instant messaging service, 21.35 percent of the Qiwi payment service, 4.63 percent of the Groupon discount service and 1.41 percent of the Zynga game producer.
The group also owns 97 percent of job-search portal HeadHunter.ru, as well as 100 percent, 32.55 percent and 2.3 percent of the Odnoklassniki, Vkontakte and Facebook social networks, respectively.
The group's principal shareholders are companies controlled by Alisher Usmanov, as well as South Africa's Naspers and China's Tencent, which jointly own 81.14 percent of voting shares and 60.34 percent of the group's charter capital.
Mail.ru Group placed Global Depositary Receipts on the London Stock Exchange at $27.70, the upper end of the price guidance, in early November.
