STICKER PILOT: The NFC stickers enable Russian shoppers to make contactless mobile payments again
Apple users with accounts at two Russian banks will soon be able to attach an NFC payment sticker to the back of their iPhone that enables them to make contactless payments for goods and services with their smartphone.
Sberbank and Alfa-Bank are to test the stickers after customers were no longer able to make contactless mobile payments because a number of payments services were withdrawn following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Visa and Mastercard stopped servicing cards issued by Russian banks and both Apple Pay and Google Pay suspended support for contactless mobile payments made using Mir cards issued by Russia’s National Payment Card System in March 2022.
“The sticker attaches to the iPhone and looks like a regular bank card, but several times smaller,” Russian media outlet TAdviser reports.
“The card number and transaction confirmation codes are not on the sticker.
“You can pay with a sticker wherever there is a terminal for contactless payments — in a store, cafe, hairdresser and so on. And you can also withdraw cash from ATMs with contactless authorisation.”
About 100,000 bank customers are to take part in the test and the banks will then make a decision about whether to put the stickers into commercial operation after “further refining the product”, according to TAdviser.
Russian banks pilot contactless payment stickers for iPhone users was written by Tom Phillips and published by NFCW.