PrivatBank in the Ukraine has contracted with Gemalto to provide conactless stickers to all customers, paving the way for the country's first commercial mobile payment deployment.
PrivatBank, the nation's largest commercial bank serving over 18 million customers in the country, says it will distribute Gemalto's Optelio stickers through its branch network and at high street retail outlets.
Customers attach the sticker to their mobile phone in order to tap out at PayPass contactless terminals for small amount purchases.
Nikita Volkov, PrivatBank's vice-CEO, views the sticker deployment as an interim technology on the way to full NFC deployment. "In the longer term, this will help us to prepare the market for mobile NFC, with the sticker being a first towards mobile contactless payment," he says.
"Moving to contactless is more than just changing the technology, it is also changing the long-standing consumer habits," adds Jean-Paul Ternisien, senior vice president at Gemalto. "Gemalto's Optelio solution offers a cost-effective option to quickly deploy mobile contactless payment services to PrivatBank's existing customers."