WebMoney, the Moscow-based Russian online payment solution platform has announced support for Bitcoin. The new feature enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments from customers who are not signed up on WebMoney.
The latest addition, which was launched by the company earlier this week, enables merchants that use “Merchant WebMoney” service to accept payments without having to go through multiple steps, like in the previous version. Earlier, merchants were able to accept Bitcoin on a dedicated X-Purse online wallet. But now they can accept the digital currency on their respective Z-Purse for US Dollar; R-Purse for Russian Ruble and U-Purse for Ukrainian Hryvnia.
Whenever a customer chooses to pay with Bitcoin, an equivalent in the respective fiat currency will be credited to the linked purse. This way, merchants can offer an additional payment option without having to worry about any integration hassles. The inclusion of digital currency support comes at the time when the country’s cryptocurrency regulatory environment hangs in a balance.
Recently, the Russian Finance Ministry announced that it will be reviewing the current cryptocurrency draft law in consultation with experts in the field. But other government bodies continue to crack down on digital currencies. A few weeks ago, Local Bitcoins — the leading peer to peer cryptocurrency exchange platform was banned in the country.
While the Russian financial sector is quite averse to cryptocurrencies, the central bank and other banking and financial institutions are more open to its underlying technology. The Russian banking consortium is currently working on developing distributed ledger based solutions for its operations.
Amidst the uncertainty, WebMoney is currently testing waters. If it is successful, then we can expect more companies to start supporting Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as alternative modes of payment in the country.
Ref: WebMoney | Image: NewsBTC
