Yandex plans to return to the financial market after breaking up with Tinkoff Bank and dividing assets with Sberbank. As Tigran Khudaverdyan, managing director of the Yandex group of companies, said in an interview with RBC, the company is still deciding on the release format and the first products can be seen in a year.

“The realistic period within which we will be able to issue the first loans and cards is about 12 months,” Khudaverdyan clarified. He did not specify what products Yandex would be able to offer, noting that the company would first need to obtain a banking license.

Yandex began working in the financial services sector in 2002, when it launched the Yandex.Money service. Since 2013, Sberbank has become a co-owner of the service. In the summer of 2020, the parties announced the division of assets, and the bank completely bought out Yandex.Money. After this , Yandex negotiated with TCS Group, the parent structure of Tinkoff Bank, but later the parties decided to stop negotiations.

Khudaverdyan explained that the company is now choosing a possible path for the development of the financial direction: “I think that literally in the coming months or even weeks we will have an understanding of this strategy and we will move in this direction.”

In August it became known that Yandex had registered 33 trademarks, including “YaBank”, “YaTrade”, “YaValyuta”, “YaFintech”, “YaMani”, “YaPerevod”, “YaAcquiring” and other brands associated with finances. The company explained that they often register trademarks for future use, but not all of them are used in the future.

In July, Yandex launched the opportunity to open an account for storing money and investments on Russian exchanges as part of the Plus subscription. The Account in Plus service operates in partnership with the VTB Capital Investments platform. “Account in Plus” is available to clients of any banks. Clients can use it instead of a bank deposit and change currency at a rate close to the exchange rate.

Yandex announced the release of its own financial products in a year