UPDATE2: Russian banks, Visa start working on pay apps Apple Pay, Samsung Pay

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MOSCOW, Oct 4 (PRIME) -- Russia’s National System of Payment Cards and Visa have installed a token service, and the U.S. payment giant has started working with banks to unroll payment services via mobile devices, a Visa spokesperson said Thursday.

“We hope we’d share good news soon,” the spokesperson said.

Head of Visa’s local branch Yekaterina Petelina said in June that Visa’s key project in Russia is the token service aimed at launching secure payment applications on smartphones, like Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and others.

The country’s largest bank Sberbank launched Apple Pay, a payment system from Apple, for its MasterCard cards.

“Apple Pay is becoming a distribution driver for contactless payments in Russia and in the world. Many Sberbank clients use new technologies actively and will prefer cashless and contactless payment via their smartphones more frequently,” Alexander Torbakhov, deputy chairman of the bank’s executive board, said.

Payments will be carried out thorough the platform MasterCard Digital Enablement Service (MDES), which uses advanced technologies, including biometry.

When a credit or debit MasterCard is added to Apple Pay, its number will not be stored either on the device or Apple’s servers. The user will get a unique number, which is cyphered and kept on the device’s Secure Element chip.

Payment via Apple Pay can be adjusted in Sberbank’s mobile application.

“By the end of the year all federal chains will be equipped – some of them already are – with the technology of contactless payment. By the end of next year all stores serviced by Sberbank and counting over 600,000 units and their number is rising, will accept contactless payments,” Torbakhov said.

“In Sberbank we’ve been working to draw this happy future closer and distance from all these things of the physical world for several years. When we learnt two years ago that Apple kicked off the technology, we had no doubt that it was what we needed.”

Other international payment systems will also join Apple Pay in the future, he said.

Sberbank will gradually equip all its automated teller machines with the contactless technology of payments or money withdrawals, but it will take more time, the executive said.

Magnit, one of the country’s biggest grocery retailers, has become the first to accept Apple Pay at all its stores.

“All payment terminals that we buy and install at cashier desks in our stores are equipped with a contactless module. It means a client can touch the terminal with an Apple device and make a purchase via the TouchID function. No PIN code is required for a purchase of up to 1,000 rubles. It will reduce lines and facilitate the process of payment for goods,” Magnit’s Financial Director Khachatur Pombukhchan said.

(62.5477 rubles – U.S. $1)

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