Tinkoff Bank acquires stake in ticketer Kassir
Russia’s Tinkoff Bank, the world’s largest fully online lender, has acquired a stake in leading ticket seller Kassir.ru.
Moscow-based Tinkoff – a division of TCS Group Holding – says the acquisition, the price of which was not disclosed, is in line with its strategy of offering customers a “greater choice of financial and related services”, and will see Kassir.ru selling tickets directly through the Tinkoff banking app and online service.
“We are pleased to sign this deal with Russia’s most tech-savvy financial player,” says Evgeny Finkelstein (pictured), founder and president of promoter PMI (Petersburg Music Industry), the parent company of Kassir.ru.
“We will be happy to share our expertise in understanding customer preferences and our entertainment insights with Tinkoff, while Tinkoff’s expertise will help us modernise and innovate in IT to give greater momentum to strengthening our market leadership.”
“We are pleased to sign this deal with Russia’s most tech-savvy financial player”
According to the International Ticketing Yearbook 2017, Kassir.ru is one of the main primary players in Russia and, through its Baltic Ticket Holdings subsidiary, the market leader in Estonia (Piletilevi), Latvia (Biļešu Serviss) and Lithuania (Bilietai.lt).
It sold more than 4.3 million tickets to a range of music, entertainment and sporting events in 2017, with revenues for the year totalling ₽7.1 billion (US$112.4m).
“We are focusing on building out Tinkoff’s ecosystem as we seek to provide our customers with a range of daily services beyond financial and insurance products,” says Oliver Hughes, CEO of Tinkoff Bank. “The integration of Russia’s top ticket sales company into the Tinkoff.ru platform will fulfil another daily customer need, this time in entertainment. This, in turn, strengthens our position in lifestyle services beyond banking.
“By leveraging synergies with Tinkoff Bank and other group companies, we will be able to attract new users to our ecosystem. We will also share best practice in business process optimisation and IT to help Kassir.ru further boost its business.”
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