One startup that I regret not having done 10 years ago
Once, almost 10 years ago, I did a project with the leading Russian opposition figure and corruption fighter Alexei Navalny (you can watch the Oscar-winning film “Navalny”, an American documentary produced by HBO and CNN) “Navalny’s Bank Card” (Financial Times, BBC, Forbes, Business Insider, and many others covered this story) — but despite huge demand (only on the first day we received more than 5000 requests for the card), due to political pressure the project had to be quickly closed.
Since then, I have been an active supporter and provided financial support both in Russia and in recent years his Anti Corruption Foundation, non-profit in the USA.
Highly recommend: You can watch the Oscar-winning film “Navalny”, an American documentary produced by HBO and CNN. I strongly suggest checking out the latest book, “The Dissident: Alexey Navalny: Profile of a Political Prisoner” by David Herszenhorn from The Washington Post.
Full story in Russian here. Ten years later:
BI: The Russian Opposition Is Hoping To Fund Itself With A Debit Card — by Adam Taylor (May 15, 2012|29|1).
In a somewhat startling use of finance for protest, Russian blogger and opposition activist Alexei Navalny is issuing a new debit card that will give 1% of transactions made to the nonprofit Fund for Fighting Corruption, which publishes Navalny’s Rospil.info website. RFE/RL reports that the head of Navalny’s fund has refused to reveal the bank that the card will be published in partnership with (apparently because of concerns the bank had), and that the group are expecting as many as 4 million cards to be issued. While it strikes us as an unusual move, perhaps it reveals something about Navalny, the most prominant grass-roots opposition leader we’ve seen recently in Russia. Navalny, a 35-year-old trained lawyer who studied at Yale, has been secretly courting many members of Russia’s financial elite. http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-05-15/news/31706675_1_debit-card-opposition-anti-corruption-campaign
Moscow Times: Navalny to issue bank cards to fight corruption — by Evgeniya Chaykovskaya (15/05/2012)
Opposition figure Alexei Navalny has announced that he has agreed on issuing co-branded debit cards with an unnamed Russian bank. One percent of all transactions conducted with the card would be transferred to a non-commercial organization — The Fund for Fighting Corruption, set up by Navalny, his spokeswoman Anna Veduta told Vedomosti. The money will be provided by the bank, rather than the card owner. They will be issued on standard terms and conditions for this type of card, and their design will show that the owner “is a person who is not afraid and who cares,” Veduta said. A marketing survey by Radar agency showed that there were 4 million potential customers for the card in Russia. Bank issuer is at risk: Navalny has not disclosed the name of the issuing bank, but Svyaznoi, Alfa-Bank, G.E. Money bank, Tinkoff credit systems and Vyatka told Vedomosti they will not take part in the project. Navalny is currently under administrative arrest. “The bank is taking part in the project only in an infrastructure [role]. It does not support my activity neither by itself, not through its shareholders,” Veduta quoted on Navalny as saying. Businessmen, however, are sure that cooperating with Navalny is a political risk, Vedomosti reported. “There will be checks for all possible reasons,” a top manager of an unnamed bank said. Few people would agree to it, a co-owner of a small bank said. Navalny is undesirable for the authorities, and at present they can create problems for any business. Navalny is looking for an open and non-anonymous source of financing. He announced in February that he was holding talks with a pool of businessmen about public financial aid for the fund. He estimated the necessary yearly budget at $300,000. The fund received support from businessman Boris Zimin, son of Dmitry Zimin, the Beeline brand founder (he confirmed that he donated 300,000 rubles and will transfer similar amounts monthly), and former Alfa Group manager Vladimir Ashurkov, who became the fund’s executive director (and also confirmed a donation of 300,000 rubles). Another partner is the managing partner of Alcantara Asset Management, Sergei Grechishkin, who also confirmed a donation to the fund. Talks with businessmen and public figures are ongoing. Writer Dmitry Bykov also promised to donate, and head of the Russian Economic School, Sergei Guriyev, and his wife, economist Yekaterina Zhuravskaya, said they have already done so, but more in support of political competition, than Navalny’s ideas. Navalny has already used mass-funding, when his Rospil anti-corruption project was funded via Yandex.Koshelyok donations and collected more than 8 million rubles in a few months from more than 20,000 people. The Fund for Fighting Corruption was set up by Navalny in 2011 and unites all his projects — Rospil, Rosyama, Rosagit, Rosvybory and Dobraya Mashina Propagandy. Reports on money received and spent are published online regularly. Co-branded card programs are popular with banks. For example, Sberbank has a co-branded card with the Give Life charity fund, in which 0.3 percent of all purchases are transferred to the fund by both the client and the bank. However, in Russia the share of co-branded cards is still lower than in the USA and Europe, where it is 60 percent of all plastic cards. The majority of them are supermarkets, airlines and online shops, where owners of these cards are offered extra services. Non-commercial organizations often use such cards for financing. http://themoscownews.com/business/20120515/189731250.html
