Russia's largest payment system, said it is not involved in schemes to provide financing to the Islamic State extremist group

Moscow,  - Qiwi (MOEX: QIWI), which manages Russia's largest payment system, said it is not involved in schemes to provide financing to the Islamic State extremist group, the company's press service told.

A number of Russian and Kazakhstani news sources have reported that Islamic State fighters from the North Caucasus are collecting funds to finance terrorist activities using the Russian payment system.

"Successfully aiding and abetting terrorism could be the fault of any other large financial structure, as well as the internet as a whole, social networks, mobile operators, smartphone producers, etc. Everything that terrorists utilize, unfortunately," Qiwi's press service said.

A company representative said that Qiwi has created a system that blocks attempts to use the payment service for illegal purposes, while the official media has "mistakenly confirmed that remote payments are seemingly anonymous."

"This isn't so because, according to the law, there are types of payments for which identification is needed as both the payer and the receiver, which is what any payment system does, including Qiwi. In addition, electronic payment technologies allow for a significant amount of information to be received on payment participants, which might be used and is being used to prevent illegal activities," the representative said, adding that Qiwi regularly blocks such electronic wallets.

Qiwi controls Russia's largest payment service. The group includes LLC QIWI Wallet, QIPS LLC and LLC QIWI Payment Services Provider.