Apple Pay in Russia will be replaced with stickers, but this will not solve the problem of payment on international platforms

Russian banks will launch payment stickers in February that will allow smartphone owners to pay for services with one touch. This decision is one of the attempts of credit institutions to compensate customers for the damage from the March withdrawal of Visa and Mastercard from Russia.

This was stated by FBA “Economics Today” economist, candidate of economic sciences Lazar Badalov.

The sticker looks like a smaller bank card without a number and a CVC code (located on the back of the security code). To install a sticker, the user just needs to separate it from the special keeper, remove the protective layer and stick it on the back surface of the smartphone, preferably in its lower part, so that the NFC antenna does not interfere with the operation of the device.

“Banks are launching such services in order to compensate customers for the departed international payment systems. There is nothing fundamentally new here – just an additional set of opportunities,” Lazar Badalov believes.

But the main loss from the departure of Visa and Mastercard is not one-touch payments, but Russians paying for services on international Internet sites and on the territory of foreign countries.

So far, serious progress has not been achieved here: the Mir payment system is under pressure from US secondary sanctions, some banks in Turkey, Uzbekistan, and even Kazakhstan, a member of the EAEU, refused to work with it in 2022.

However, in its modern form, stickers will help customers only in the Russian market.

“Stickers do not guarantee users a chance to quickly enter the international market, but compensate customers for part of the losses due to the departure of Western payment systems, albeit only in terms of one-touch payments,” Badalov sums up.