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Contactless payment at gas stations is both a new and promising direction. So Yandex.Fueling is a service with which you can pay for fuel on your phone at a gas station. With this app you don’t have to go to the cashier and wait in line. And if there is a free gas station worker at the station, then you won’t have to get out of the car. You can pay for fuel at more than 5300 filling stations throughout Russia. And this week the number of payments through Yandex.Fueling exceeded 100 thousand per day
The Yandex example shows how different filling companies can not create their own services, but improve their functionality through an intermediary. Unlike ExxonMobil, which creates a contactless payment service for its gas stations.
“Since March 2020, the strait in Moscow has grown by 300%, and in other regions by 200%,” said Artyom Prudnikov, head of Yandex.Fueling. “In addition, we have increased the number of filling stations. A thousand were added during the quarter, and now there are 6671 stations in the service. Already 25% of filling stations in Russia work with Yandex.Fuel stations. And by the end of the year we plan to connect about 400 filling stations. And thanks to the connection of Rosneft networks, this year we entered new regions: Rostov, Samara and their regions, Krasnodar Territory, Bashkiria and others. ”
In times of coronavirus, this service is a perfect example of how most human contact can be minimized. Cooperation with Yandex allows not only to significantly expand the possibilities for using the contactless fuel payment service, but also contributes to improving the safety of motorists, which is extremely important in the context of maintaining social distance. The Yandex.Fuel service is integrated into Yandex.Navigator, Yandex.Maps and a separate application. The service informs the user about the types of fuel at each filling station and the optimal route, and at the filling station itself it allows you to select the dispenser number, the brand of fuel and its volume, as well as pay for the gas station without leaving their car.
“Taking into account the current situation, we note the high demand for contactless payment for fuel and the potential for the development of other remote services,” said Avril Conroy, Vice President for Retail Business Development, Rosneft
The company’s research shows a time saving of two minutes per customer, potentially allowing petrol stations to increase sales by 20%.“Cooperation with Yandex is very profitable,” the representative told Reuters.
But for some private petrol stations, the shift by drivers to paying from their vehicles poses a threat. “It’s not good for us,” said a source from a network of private stations, which recently agreed to sign a deal with Yandex because “everyone is using it”.
“We need a customer to go to the shop and buy chocolate. Gasoline brings us less than the shop and the cafe.”
Sources:
https://www.akm.ru/press/rosneft_podklyuchila_1400_azs_k_servisu_beskontaktnoy_oplaty_topliva_yandeks_zapravki/
https://www.cnews.ru/news/line/2020-11-06_voditeli_zapravlyayutsya_cherez