UniCredit is to issue contactless stickers in Russia, turning consumer mobile handsets into cardless payment devices.
The largest foreign bank in Russia, UniCredit is using Optelia Contactless stickers from Gemalto. The contract comes after the French company migrated UniCredit's entire Russian card portfolio to contactless EMV earlier this year.
For the Russian market, the stickers can be issued in relation to any current account open with UniCredit Bank. There are approximately 20,000 NFC-enabled terminals in Moscow and, with the addition of the user's PIN, the stickers will also support transactions worth over 1,000 rubles (EUR 20).
Alexander Vishnyakov, head of the Operations Channels Department at ZAO UniCredit Bank. "Gemalto's Optelio solution offers a cost-effective option to deploy contactless payment services to our existing customers immediately, and will be a springboard for mobile NFC adoption in the longer term."