Key players in buy now pay later (BNPL) in Russia 2019-2022
Russia itself was excluded from SWIFT in 2022. PayPal is used in Russia, but it not immediately clear whether the numbers on display indicate use of certain buy now, pay later options found within the app or not.
Klarna did not rank among downloaded apps in Russia that could be used for BNPL, a trait not found elsewhere in Europe. This according to an estimate using different buy now, pay later brands from across the world as well as within the country. Instead of Klarna, Russians downloaded local apps Mokka and Dolyame.ru from Tinkoff. The latter service launched in April 2021 as Russia's first BNPL serivce, whilst Mokka derives from a fintech located in Poland but also operates in Romania. A notable app in this list is ZoodPay, a super app similar to China’s WeChat and Alipay, in that it offers many wide-ranging services within its ecosystem. ZoodPay's buy now, pay later ecosystem, for instance, include a marketplace (ZoodMall), a cross-border system (ZoodShip), and logistics. The app aims itself at the Middle East, most notably Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan. Russia's domestic financial clearing system - SPFS, or the System for Transfer of Financial Messages - is tied to that of Iran after the Middle Eastern country was cut of from international system SWIFT in 2019, a point that raised after