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September 2020 www.intellinews.com I Page 3
IT university plans scrapped
The Belarusian government's crackdown on protesters has also put a lid on plans to open an IT university in Minsk.
The idea came from Belarus-born tech entrepreneur Yuri Gursky, the owner of Flo and Wannaby, who wanted to launch a university alongside some partners.
"We planned to accept no more than 1,000
Russian online giant Yandex mulls financial ecosystem investments
Last month, Yandex applied for trademarks in the banking, insurance and investment business in a move that many believe signifies the internet behemoth's plans to step up its activities in the finance sector.
Currently, the company runs Yandex.Money, an online payment system, which is registered as
a non-banking financial organization. However, Yandex' ambitions in the finance industry go far beyond just providing payment services, Russian business daily Vedomosti reported.
"Almost all major IT companies are trying to develop services related to payments or crediting at least because they already have sufficient information on users to be able to correctly
and efficiently understand their financial needs and possibilities," Sergei Khestanov, a counsel to general director of Otkrytie brokerage, was quoted as saying by Vedomosti.
If Yandex just wanted to own a bank, it would just buy an existing one, as there are offerings of that kind in the market, adds Leonid Delitsyn, an analyst at Finam brokerage.
or 2,000 students," he was quoted as saying
by Forbes Russia. "We would tell graduates that those doing well would be guaranteed employment with a certain pool of companies."
But the recent crackdown on protesters made Gursky reconsider his plans. "For instance, [authorities] could just sue us if out of 2,000 students, 700 took part in protests," he explained. "And the university's founders would go to prison."
"Theoretically, Yandex could buy an existing solution," he explains. "But the company apparently has other goals. All major companies, such as mobile operators, large lenders and IT companies, are building ecosystems around themselves, creating a group of partner companies, with which they will proceed into the future."
Yandex could start off by building a service similar to Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay, predicts Khestanov, adding that creating a marketplace on the Amazon model could be the following step.
"We will soon see a large-scale process of building a hybrid between IT and a financial infrastructure aimed at replicating [the success of] existing payment services and marketplaces," he explains. "The consumer will only benefit from that."
According to Delitsyn, under another scenario, state-run lender VTB could possibly become Yandex' partner in developing financial services.
Meanwhile, just weeks ago, Yandex finalized its divorce with another major Russian lender, Sberbank, buying out a 45% stake in its e-commerce marketplace Yandex.Market for RUB42bn ($559mn) and selling a stake in Yandex. Money to the lender for RUB2.4bn.
The parting of ways was widely expected as in recent years Sberbank has been pivoting away from Yandex, while strengthening co-operation