Capital for the bank was found in Yandex – Newspaper Kommersant No. 25 (7470) dated 02/10/2023

According to the results of 2022, the capital of Yandex-Bank exceeded 4 billion rubles, having increased three times over the past year. The main shareholder of the bank redeemed the bank’s additional issue several times with a premium. According to experts, this may be due to plans to scale the credit business, the main product is a payment by installments service.

In 2022, the equity capital of Yandex’s subsidiary bank tripled – from 1.4 billion rubles. at the beginning of the year to 4.2 billion rubles. according to its results, follows from the disclosed data of the credit institution. “The growth of capitalization is a standard procedure for the further development of the bank,” the company commented. However, they did not specify the sources of investment in capital, as well as the financial result of the bank over the past year. In January, the owner of the bank, Yandex.Market Lab, replenished its capital through an additional issue of 700 million rubles. (includes share premium). In the middle of the year, the authorized capital was increased by another 100 million rubles, but the share premium was not disclosed.

At the end of 2021, the ex-head of Yandex, Tigran Khudaverdyan, in an interview with RBC, said that it was not planned to be “super-innovators” in the banking market, “at least for now”, they also talked about the possible provision of services to taxi drivers and couriers in the status of self-employed. But now, among the loan products, as Kommersant was told at the bank, there is an online learning loan on its own platform. The “financial service” appeared towards the end of 2022, they said. There is also a payment service in parts “Yandex Split”, which is present both on its own marketplace and with external partners. The bank also began to attract funds from retail customers: at the end of 2022, an online deposit was launched, and in January 2023, the first debit product for partner drivers was launched. However, the company does not disclose the amount of funds raised.

Most likely, Yandex-Bank was capitalized by a shareholder, and not at the expense of profits, Mikhail Shlemov, the author of the My Investments TG channel, believes. The probable reason for the additional capitalization may be the growth of the retail business, mainly installments for marketplace customers, Ivan Uklein, director of banking ratings at Expert RA, notes: Most likely, related areas are also being tried: lending and settlement services to marketplace suppliers, the expert notes. According to Alma Obayeva, chairman of the National Payments Council, banks associated with marketplaces (Yandex, Ozon and Wildberries) “have the task of lending and servicing the entire chain – from the delivery of goods to Russia, and maybe even from its production, before sale to the final consumer.

At the same time, as Mr. Shlemov notes, the main financial product in the Yandex ecosystem is installment plan (Yandex Split service). According to him, this is a high-margin product that allows for a good turnover due to the short portfolio duration. After a series of experiments, the company “groped” for good metrics for this product and started scaling it, Mr. Shlemov believes. According to market participants, there are two mechanisms for monetizing this product. The first is when the seller actually pays the bank interest at the expense of an increased commission, the second (in the case of installments with Tinkoff Bank Shares) is when the cost of the service is included in the cost of payments for the product.

At the same time, sanctions pressure and “gray” imports, as a result, “lead to the appearance of products of poorer quality at a high price,” Mr. Shlemov notes. All this is happening against the backdrop of a decrease in the solvency of Russians. “Marketplaces are becoming the main channel for implementing parallel imports. Installment is a mechanism to support sales in light of these trends,” he says. Therefore, according to the expert, it is natural that the company will increase the capitalization of the bank to support the growth and monetization of its e-commerce business.

According to banking expert Olga Ulyanova, with a capital of 4 billion rubles. the loan portfolio can reach up to 30–35 billion rubles, which will allow it to focus not only on lending to individual clients of Yandex Market, but also representatives of small and medium-sized businesses trading on the marketplace, as well as individual entrepreneurs. In the future, she believes, this may allow not only the bank itself to start receiving a solid interest income, since retail loans remain the most marginal loan segment, but also increase the marketplace’s revenue.

Olga Sherunkova, Maxim Buylov