This marks the first time such service appears in Russia: until now, Russian companies and entrepreneurs could accept payments via WeChat Pay only at offline retail outlets.

The new option will suit any online business that is already working or planning to work with customers from China: services selling tickets for trains and airplanes, tickets for excursion tours, theater and museum tickets, websites of travel agencies, food delivery services, hotels, taxis, online stores, online training courses, and many other services.

Yandex.Checkout started enabling payment acceptance via WeChat Pay to offline companies in late 2018. The service is popular among the duty free shops in Russian airports. Now, companies operating online that are seeking to enter the Chinese-oriented market can also accept payments via WeChat Pay.

“Yandex.Checkout is already working with Chinese companies oriented towards Russian customers, and now it also offers Russian businesses new opportunities to work with customers from China. Payment acceptance via WeChat Pay can be a starting point for growth to a business that’s working with Chinese tourists within Russia or is looking at the international market with an interest in customers from China. Moreover, WeChat is an all-purpose service for working with customers: it’s both a payment solution and a promotional tool. Companies that will use all the features of this service will have excellent prospects for reaching a large audience of Chinese customers,” says Ilia Sokolov, Head of Asian business development at Yandex.Checkout.

“Yandex.Checkout is one of the strategic partners of WeChat Pay in Russia. The service already helps Russian stores to accept payments via WeChat Pay offline, and now it will help everyone who wants to do so online,” says Jeff Hu, Regional Director at WeChat Pay Europe.

Customers don’t need to pay a commission for payments made via WeChat Pay, as Yandex.Checkout only charges the seller. This payment method debits the money for the purchase from the user's balance in the WeChat messenger or from the bank card linked to it. User can spend up to 646 thousand rubles (69,185 yuan) to pay for a purchase at a time, and up to about 1.3 million rubles (139,227 yuan) per day.

Companies that already work with Yandex.Checkout won’t need to set anything up to add payment acceptance via WeChat Pay to their website: all that’s required is an additional contract. Companies that have not yet joined Yandex.Checkout will need to sign a contract and implement the payment solution.