Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 28
By Rashid Shirinov – Trend:
Five second-tier banks of Kazakhstan – Halyk Bank, Sberbank, ForteBank, Eurasian Bank and Bank CenterCredit – have launched Apple Pay mobile payment service, Kazakh media reported.
The innovative service allows to transform the sphere of mobile payments in Kazakhstan. With it iPhone users, once having added a payment card data to their Apple device, can use their iPhones as a card by holding it to a POS terminal.
Yerlan Ashikbekov, Director of the Payment Systems Department of Kazakhstan National Bank, expressed confidence that the banks are ready to adopt the new technologies.
"Kazakhstan is among the top 20 countries in terms of introducing innovative technologies for contactless payments," he said.
Ashikbekov noted that today in Kazakhstan every second non-cash transaction is carried out remotely.
"We, as a regulator, support the development of innovative services. The payment market of Kazakhstan has all the necessary infrastructure and legal framework to launch Apple Pay," he said.
Apple Pay certification took a record minimum time for many banks in Kazakhstan. The first countries that launched Apple Pay spent about 8 months on certification, but in Kazakhstan it took only about 2 months.
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