Lending for small and medium-sized businesses is now available in Yandex Pay

Yandex Pay announced the launch of lending for legal entities from October 2025. Now companies can receive a loan of up to 1.5 billion rubles for any purpose, including the purchase of equipment and transport. At the same time, it is not necessary to open a current account with Yandex Bank.

According to Anatoly Perfilyev, director of banking ratings at Expert RA, Yandex Pay attracts funds from the population into deposits at a rate that outpaces the growth of the loan portfolio, which allows it to accumulate liquid assets. But with the fall in the key rate, these assets lose profitability, and the bank needs to find new ways to invest. The bank will receive information about potential borrowers from other divisions of Yandex, primarily Yandex Pay is aimed at working with small businesses.

Denis Osin, director of small and micro business at Alfa-Bank, emphasizes that it is in this segment that there is a high concentration of risks, which may require recapitalization.

Experts point out that the corporate lending market is already divided between large state and private banks, and launching a new business in such conditions becomes a difficult task.

Large banks can offer more competitive rates, which exacerbates the task for new players. At the same time, companies such as Wildberries and Ozon are already actively financing their sellers, which creates additional pressure on the market.

Read more materials:

• A "cooling-off period" for issuing loans will appear in Russia
• Manufacturers of machine tools and robots received 1.5 billion rubles under the preferential program of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation
• In August, Russians took out 1.46 million credit cards