E-money has so far raised more questions than answers for most people, and is not yet very common even among active users of the Web. The free e-money system launched by the VKontakte social network can seriously change the balance of power in the market and increase the popularity of virtual money. Now «VKontakte» about 70 million user profiles, which means that the number of electronic wallets may increase next year to 100 million. Of course, this will only happen if the social network automatically creates wallets for all its users. What will be the real growth in revolutions, time will show. According to Gallup Media, there are only 17 million active users in the social network «VKontakte», and it is not yet known who of them will want to use the new service.

As for the payment system itself, it is technically no different from other electronic money systems, but the ideological differences are significant. The primary task is to distribute the payment system, as long as there are no profit-making tasks, and therefore no interest is planned to be taken from either merchants or users. Now replenishment of an electronic purse «VKontakte» manages to the user approximately in 2–9 % from the sum, but this commission in full gets the company to the owner of the terminal or service through which money are entered in payment system. But in the near future it is planned to open its own way of depositing funds with zero commission. As an additional security measure, a confirmation of payment via SMS is used. SMS confirmation also uses the OSMP electronic money system (brand QIWI), however, there the phone is also a way to authorize the user. According to a source close to the project, all the financial costs for the creation of the project amounted to only about 10 thousand dollars, which was spent on the remuneration of specialists: programmers, interface designers, system architects. The new payment system is already being used by Futurico's online electronics store «Unimaginable.ru» (nevoobrazimo.ru) and the software store «Po Subscription. ru» (popodpiske.ru) to interact with the new payment system via the Merchant API. This should stimulate the sale of the latter, which will bring VKontakte direct profit.

The emergence of social networks' own payment systems is a logical way to monetize. For example, Facebook is actively developing its own electronic payment system, Facebook-Credits. Before that, users could pay for social network services through Paypal. At the same time, she notes that «it is necessary to understand that in this union - the payment system and social network – the conditions dictate the latter, it was she who owned the main «asset» – a multimillion audience. Thus, for «VKontakte» own payment system is, first of all, a way of monetization of users, but not a separate profitable business, as known WebMoney and «Yandex. Money», which is confirmed by the free of charge system – the social network is ready to take on the additional costs of servicing electronic payments (which is at least an administrative burden on the staff) only in order to increase sales of virtual goods.

As for the development of external purchases through the VKontakte payment system, some problems may arise. Purchasing third party goods and services requires building a complex infrastructure between the payment system and counterparties, and it is not easy to promote them in the places where people come to communicate.

Payment systems have completely different security standards, on the one hand, and responsibility to users, on the other hand. On the third hand, social networks have a very important asset, which has already been focused on – it is the current audience. But this is not enough for a full-fledged payment system. The necessary factor is the promotion of its payment system in the external environment, that is, online stores.

Here everything is not so simple anymore - it is necessary to convince shop owners that it is necessary to use Merchant API, besides, it is required to spend the huge work on creation of possibilities: from payment of a huge quantity of services and accounts of housing and communal services before filling of balance of a mobile phone. None of this has happened yet, but let's hope it does. Now we can only add that I could not find my electronic wallet and the means to create it.

It is known that any innovation can be used for both good and bad, and this also applies to electronic money. We all see how technological developments lead to the emergence of new types of crime. A striking example is telephone fraud, which nobody had heard of before the appearance of cellular communication and premium numbers for SMS. At the same time, people lose money because they have not yet adapted to new forms of «divorce». As far as e-money is concerned, it is not even «virtual pickpockets», which collect passwords, that should be more afraid of scammers, who use more complex schemes. For example, the appearance of «fake» partners who commit fraud by pretending to be a legitimate online store. It is also possible that malicious software will appear that will redirect users to such «partner» sites. Also, its own electronic payment system is a rather complicated technological step, in which different vulnerabilities are inevitable. And this applies not only to the technical part, but also to the organizational part. For the interaction between the elements of the payment system specialists of «VKontakte» developed a protocol that can be well protected by its authors. However, the extent to which all security requirements will be met by the partners and the extent to which VKontakte will strictly monitor compliance with these requirements is not yet known. Any security breach could lead to a loss of money. By the way, if you use access to «VKontakte» from your mobile phone, then in case of loss of the device, your wallet will not be able to secure even the SMS confirmation of payment. If the network users get a really simple and safe tool, the balance of power in the e-money market can change very much.

The problem of e-money fraud has also been taken up by long-established electronic payment systems. In the near future, i-Free and other mobile payment market participants plan to announce the creation of their association. The new association has already set an ambitious goal to clear the market of fraud.

The problem of e-currency conversion, which has been known for a long time, seems to be close to being solved by Yandex as well. Money and WebMoney. However, this will not please the owners of «exchangers» of Internet currencies – they are in a new scheme, which discuss Yandex and WebMoney, absent. In the near future, there will be a tool to convert currencies without intermediaries. On the one hand, consumers should rejoice – because exchangers often converted electronic currencies at a devastating interest rate - up to 4 % of the amount per transaction. On the other hand, it is a clear step in the direction of disanonymization, which undermines the foundations of WebMoney, where the bulk of payments are settlements between individuals.

There is also hope that electronic money will soon be legalized and taken under control. The Government has submitted a draft law «On the National Payment System» to the State Duma.

The Treasury has been working on his development for over two years. Regulation of the electronic payments market is long overdue, experts believe. According to their data, the volume of funds transferred for nine months of this year on electronic purses, has made almost 39 billion tenge. That's 40 percent more than last year's figure. The number of active electronic wallets has already reached 25 million, increasing by 20 per cent over the year.

However, so far, the rules of the game in this market have not been defined by law, their activities have not been controlled. The law has been revised several times, and the final version of the bill is much more liberal than before.

According to the draft law, the Central Bank will supervise the activities of electronic money operators. However, it is not only banks that will be able to do this work. A market pass and fraud protection will be a requirement to obtain a license. Net assets must be at least KZT 10 million. The minimum amount of the charter capital of the newly registered non-bank credit organization, which has the right to make money transfers without opening bank accounts, is set in the amount of 17 million tenge.

Until the last time, the Ministry of Finance insisted on the mandatory identification of an individual when opening an «electronic wallet». However, in the latest version of the draft law, the agency still conceded to e-money operators and deleted this point: the operators were able to convince the Ministry of Finance that such a measure would kill the market.

The Ministry of Finance has allowed electronic money to be settled without opening a bank account. The recipients and payers can be both citizens and legal entities. If the amount of one payment for a citizen does not exceed 15 thousand tenge, the recipient's identification is not required. From 15 to 100 thousand tenge it is necessary to show the operator the passport. And over 100,000 is just not allowed to be transferred. There will be no interest on electronic money balances. But citizens will be able to get some money in cash. Legal entities and individual entrepreneurs will be able to receive electronic money only with mandatory identification.

Operators shall be obliged to guarantee bank secrecy and shall not be entitled to disclose to third parties information on transactions and accounts of payment system participants and their clients. Consumer protection is also subject to the requirement that the following be made available to the public at each transaction location, including terminals and ATMs information on the size of the commission, methods of filing complaints and the order of their consideration. In addition, the numbers of the operator's contact telephone numbers for money transfers should be specified. Moreover, the client should be able to get acquainted with this information even before the transaction.

Market participants who are tired of fighting with the rigidity of the bill, the current version is assessed positively. «Finally, in the field of payments, everything is being built up and adjusted from the point of view of legislation,» says Andrey Romanenko, President of Kiwi.

The industry, which had previously developed spontaneously, will now be placed under the supervision of government agencies and within the framework that the state considers necessary. But whether consumers will benefit from it is not at all obvious, because the presence of regulation and supervision is not synonymous with cheapening of services or improvement of their quality. Rather, we can assume the opposite – the presence of supervisory authorities and their requirements, inspections, etc. will require additional costs from market participants, which will inevitably affect the cost of services to the end user.

However, in the long run, the main goal of the draft law is to put another channel for financial flows under control in order to prevent its use for the purpose of «laundering» funds or other similar operations. Also, the legalization of electronic money can make it a full-fledged means of payment, which expands the possibilities of its use – for example, in this case, it is possible to receive wages by electronic money, or to pay taxes and other payments to the state.

But questions to the document remain with market participants. The task of the draft law is to create a national payment system that could successfully compete with the Western ones on the Kazakhstani and international markets in the future. As a result, it may turn out the opposite. American, European and Asian payment systems come to Kazakhstan and work according to the legislation of their countries – more liberal; for example, Paypal came to Kazakhstan and plays according to softer rules than it is said in the NPS – accordingly, it has a competitive advantage.

In addition, the negative point is that, given the tightening of financial sufficiency requirements, they will not be able to enter the market» small companies.» However, there is no doubt that the current players will cope with the innovations.

It also seems to be illegal to limit the maximum amount of the transaction to 75 thousand tenge, because this is an infringement of electronic money in comparison with other forms of settlements recognized by the Civil Code. For comparison, in the international practice the restrictions at the level of 10 thousand euro or $10 thousand are accepted.

For the development of e-money it is also necessary to develop internet shops. According to experts, the market of Internet commerce in Kazakhstan will develop in an evolutionary way, and this process will take 5-10 years. Sector e-commerce is characterized by high turnover, but low profits, so investors are not particularly willing to invest money there. Only a strategic investor can be interested in an online store (for example, as Martha once bought 003.ru). Indeed, this was the first and last serious purchase of an online store in Runet. The deal took place in April 2005, when the holding

«Martha bought the controlling stake in the store. The amount was not announced, but analysts estimated the purchase at $2-3 million. Investors' attention to this sector may be attracted by projects of scale Amazon.com or eBay. It is believed that now their example is «Ozone». Ozone plans to launch new private ad services and sell digital content in the near future. The first is very similar to eBay. However, analysts are not yet predicting great success for him. Now the attention of Kazakh investors and market participants is captured by the fashionable theme of Web 2.0, where there are still many questions about how to earn money. Meanwhile, online trading is gradually developing and attracting more attention from foreigners.

Currently, there are favorable circumstances for the development of the electronic economy, including electronic money. A large number of people, who in most cases are active users of the Internet, trust electronic money.

The main prospects for the development and management of the electronic economy and e-money systems are mainly related to mobile commerce, local micro-payments, as well as the increasing integration with universal personal financial services.

The products offered on the market in the field of electronic economy are focused on the use as a common multipurpose effective means of payment and are designed to perform small counterpart retail payments. Thus, e-money offers a replacement for traditional coins and banknotes.

At the same time, electronic means complement traditional all known tools of retail trade such as checks, credit and payment cards.

Most information systems work with replenishable electronic storage (cards), which allow to periodically replenish balances from bank accounts via ATMs, by phone (including SMS) or through cash deposits.

In many cases, there are relatively low limits on the maximum value stored on the card. Also, almost all programs do not have the possibility to transfer the value from one wallet to another without the participation of the issuer. At the same time, in some countries there is a tendency for electronic cash to be combined with other functionalities such as credit or debit cards, identification numbers and holder identification numbers. In several countries bank card programs are fully adapted to payments in the Internet.

Some analysts say that in the near future electronic means of payment will almost completely replace traditional cash and bank and other checks, as the nature of electronic cash offers more convenient (including fast and mobile) methods of payment for goods and services.

According to some companies' estimates, already today every second purchase in the retail trade is made using electronic means of payment.

Traditional cash remains the main means of payment in classic stores for only a third of customers. Another fact is that while most online purchases are made with bank cards, almost half of them use cheques and money orders in e-commerce.

There is now a gradual decline in the use of «Paper» payments – one fifth of buyers declare that they intend to refuse to pay their invoices by checks for further use of electronic money. At the same time, some experts warn of individual threats and conflicts that may arise in the banking sector. For example, in terms of electronic money circulation, banks may face direct competition from existing financial service providers, given that the provider, which will provide users with a convenient and simple interface, will be able to retain them for a long time.

However, banks need to enter this market, and the prospects here are significant both in terms of the potential scale of the number of possible electronic money transactions and the quality and convenience of the electronic services provided to the average banking user.