Sberbank is to spend $500 million to take a 50% stake in Yandex.Market, the e-commerce venture operated by the Russian search engine.
The companies will own equal stakes in the joint venture, which will combine the online savvy of Yandex with Sberbank's digital payments and fulfillment capabilities.
“Sberbank’s banking and payments infrastructure will help us develop simple and secure payment solutions on the Yandex.Market platform and will allow us to introduce new features, such as consumer lending,” says Maxim Grishakov, CEO of Yandex.Market. “The proposed investment will strengthen Yandex.Market’s position in the eCommerce segment allowing us improve our logistics capabilities, accelerate the wide-scale introduction of “Checkout on Yandex.Market” and enhance our value proposition to domestic and international merchants.”
Yandex.Market is one of the largest players in the Russian eCommerce market, providing access to over 20,000 domestic and international merchants and 150 million product offerings to an audience of 20 million users.
Sberbank already has a close relationship with Yandex through previous money transfer joint joint venture Yandex.Money.