FX.co ★ What awaits Apple Pay in Russia?

At the beginning of this week, 8 Russian financial organizations have announced the possibility to make purchases through the Apple Pay system to their customers. Earlier, this service was available only to the Sberbank's clients within one month. The owners of the iPhones 6 and 7 can enjoy this opportunity more than others: now, they are able to pay for purchases through their smartphone. It is a question not only of comfort and safety, but also of the citizen's status - the contactless payment characterizes him/her as a person, who understands new technologies.

The majority of banks is optimistic regarding the development of this system. The "Bank "St. Petersburg" and "Tinkoff Bank" have a positive attitude towards Apple Pay. According to the forecast of the "Bank "St. Petersburg" representatives, in the coming year, about 70% of the payments will be made using contactless technologies. The "Tinkoff Bank" is also supports the new system - most of the clients of the financial institution were waiting for her for a long time.

However, sometimes expectations are at odds with reality. Not all users are ready for Apple Pay. Since April of this year, only 15% of owners of smartphones with NFC and Android-applications use cards for contactless payments. Experts believe that the payment services Samsung Pay and Apple Pay have not become popular in Russia yet. The reason is in severe limitations of these systems: the number of smartphones with contactless payment technology is small, and there is little relevant terminals.

Some experts believe that the new system is mostly a part of image. Specialists, who emphasize the small number of contactless terminals in Russia and problems with payment when the purchase amount exceeds 1000 rubles, are agree with that. In this case, you must enter the payment password or PIN-code (depending on the service used) or run a separate application to pay for the purchase.

Many users of smartphones and Apple Pay actively discuss this in social networks, provide arguments for and against. Most of them support the technology. The use of the system surprises people around, and sometimes causes their discontent, but users of Apple Pay like it and they will continue using it.

According to the current statistics, next year, approximately 20% of the owners of relevant smartphones will use Apple Pay. Some reports indicate that the number of the Apple smartphones with contactless payment function, sold in Russia, does not exceed 1.5 million. As a result, about 300 thousand users will deal with this development. Compared with the number of cardholders in the country (about 100 million people), payments via Apple Pay are a small part of all of the transactions.