Visa Inc. and QIWI announce the mass launch of contactless smartphone payments in Russia

QIWI plc. and Visa Inc. announced implementation of a new stage of their strategic partnership, which has resulted in integration of Visa payWave’s contactless technology into Visa QIWI Wallet. Now e-wallet customers can pay using their NFC-enabled mobile devices operating on Android 4.4 or higher in stores, cafes, cinemas, and hundreds of thousands of other points of sale equipped with contactless terminals worldwide.

This joint solution brought by Visa and QIWI offers millions of Visa QIWI Wallet users new payment options and makes contactless payments accessible and convenient for virtually every user who installs the corresponding application on his/her smartphone. According to a press release, Visa QIWI Wallet account can be topped up in any of more than 100,000 QIWI kiosks throughout Russia, by linking a bankcard, or from a mobile phone account. The contactless Visa payWave solution is preinstalled in the new version of the e-wallet. Those who have already installed the Visa QIWI Wallet application need only to download the latest update.

„Contactless payment technology is gaining increasing popularity. According to IHS Technology, almost 600 million NFC-enabled phones will be sold in 2015. Even today, contactless payments volumes amount to billions of dollars worldwide and we are pleased that through our partnership with Visa, we are able to offer our users this promising and convenient technology for their everyday purchases,” said Anna Stoklitskaya, Managing Director of QIWI Group.

„Over the past year, the number of transactions made with Visa payWave in Russia has increased four times, while their volumes have increased seven-fold. Moreover, in СЕМЕА (Central Europe, Middle East and Africa), Russia ranks first in terms of the penetration of contactless payments made with Visa payWave cards.

These facts convincingly prove that this technology is popular among cardholders, primarily due to its convenience and security. All you need to do is to hold your Visa payWave card or, now, your smartphone with the QIWI Visa Wallet app installed, up to the terminal. Transactions of up to 1000 rubles do not usually require a PIN(4), and it takes only a fraction of a second for the card to communicate with the terminal. This in turn determines the segments where this payment method is highly in demand — supermarkets, gas stations and fast food restaurants. Now that contactless payments with Visa payWave have become a part of the QIWI e-Wallet, even more users in Russia can appreciate the benefits of this technology,” said Andrew Torre, country manager for Visa Russia.

(4)You can pay with a Visa payWave card by holding it up against a special Visa payWave terminal (a contact-based payment method may be required depending on the configuration of the terminal). Visa International Service Association (USA) provides the banks with an opportunity to issue Visa payment cards, use this product, and/or include this service among other services in accordance with applicable law. The issuing banks may impose restrictions on products, services and their use.

The new technology, which provides a secure way to make contactless payments using applications installed on Android-based devices, was presented by Visa at the World Mobile Congress in 2014. Thereby financial institutions were given an opportunity to use the benefits of Host Card Emulation (HCE), a new feature of the Android operating system that allows NFC apps to emulate a smart card on Android-based devices.