Yandex Blog

Yandex.Money has launched a new startup project called Twym, designed to facilitate instant transfers of rubles between users of Twitter who have Yandex.Money accounts.

Users need to have an active account on Twitter and some funds in a Yandex.Money virtual wallet, and link the two by following the prompts on twym.ru. To send money, users send a tweet mentioning @twymru, including the recipient’s username on Twitter and the sum of the transfer.

In order for a funds transfer to be completed, both the sender and the recipient need to have a Yandex.Money account linked to a Twitter account. If the recipient has already activated Twym, they get the rubles in literally a second; if not, they will be prompted to activate Twym, and receive the money after they have done so. The funds are immediately available for offline purchases worldwide using the Yandex.Money debit card.

For peace of mind, users can limit their maximum allowable transfer amount via the Wallet Preferences settings in their Yandex.Money account. The absolute maximum sum allowed for any single transfer is 100,000 rubles (about $3,300). Twym does not charge users any additional fees beyond the standard fee of Yandex.Money – 0.5% for transfers between wallets.

If someone retweets a money tweet, then another transfer will be made from their Yandex.Money account to the same recipient – a useful feature when raising funds for some purpose. Yandex.Money also has crowdfunding applications on Facebook and VK to service this ever-growing segment.

Transfers can also be kept private by adding a “d” to the beginning of a tweet, making it a direct message.

Twym was created on the API of two projects: Twitter and Yandex.Money. There is protection from both sides ­– without a user’s command, Twym doesn't have access to either service. It doesn't save any passwords or remember anything about payments.

Twym is the first and only payment service tailored for Twitter users in Russia and the CIS.

Yandex.Money is the largest electronic payment service in Russia offering easy, safe and reliable methods of paying for purchases online. As of early 2013, the system had over 13 million accounts (wallets). The platform handles more than 9,000 new accounts that are added daily and processes more than 120,000 customer payments for products and services. Yandex.Money is accepted in more than 3,500 online stores.