Russians now have access to paying for goods and services using a QR code in neighboring countries

Russian customers now have access to paying for goods and services using a QR code in neighboring countries — 28,000 stores in Tajikistan were the first to connect to the new service. The service is available to customers of any Russian banks whose application has the ability to read a QR code. Experts believe that sanctions risks are minimal in this scheme.

As Kommersant was told in MTS Bank, he was the first to implement a payment service, with which you can pay for goods and services abroad in trade and service enterprises (TSP) via QR from any Russian banks. The first of the countries where it was connected was Tajikistan, where 28,000 outlets serviced by a partner bank of MTS Bank are connected. All payments are made without commission in Russian rubles, subject to conversion into the currency of Tajikistan. The service is available for customers of any Russian banks, it is enough to have an application with which you can read the QR code, the payment takes place within Russia. After that, MTS-Bank transfers money to a Tajik partner bank in local currency, and the latter credits it to the store’s account.

As Kirill Palchun, the business leader of the Money Transfer System direction of MTS Bank, explained to Kommersant, against the background of the growth of the Tajik economy in 2022 by 8%, the volume of the money transfer market in Tajikistan grew by 78% in 2022. According to him, other banks in Tajikistan have already shown interest in the service, and integration is also underway with banks in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia.

Lawyers believe that the risks of secondary sanctions in such a scheme could arise if the currency of unfriendly countries were used in the payment chain. As Ekaterina Orlova, head of legal practice at Grace Consulting Ltd, explained, if there are no American correspondents on the receiving side, then this payment structure may well be working for the amounts and needs of the local market in Tajikistan.

According to experts, a similar scheme was implemented to pay abroad using Russian bank cards (see Kommersant dated October 27, 2022). According to Roman Prokhorov, head of the board of the Financial Innovations Association, this is quite a convenient scheme for Russian tourists, although the number of such tourists in Tajikistan is small, it is rather a test run of the approach. “For merchants, such a scheme is more convenient than installing Russian POS terminals, since they receive money from a local bank and the local regulator has fewer questions about them, but a local partner bank is needed,” he explained. At the same time, as a source in the banking market told Kommersant, in the case of paying by QR code, firstly, it is necessary that the store has stable Internet access, without which it is impossible to enter the application. And secondly, the buyer’s bank can understand by geolocation that a payment from one Russian bank to another Russian bank is made from abroad, and consider such a payment to be fraudulent.

Alexey Voylukov, Vice President of the Association of Russian Banks, believes that in the absence of other payment options, this method is good and convenient, but it must be understood that not only one Russian bank is looking for payment methods for Russian tourists abroad, but also other players. “In the future, a situation may well arise that in large stores at the checkout there will be an album of QR codes from different banks offering different payment terms, and this will no longer be a very convenient payment scheme,” he says. In his opinion, the establishment of terminals of Russian banks by foreign merchants is also not an ideal option and is associated with additional costs for technical equipment and support, which increases the cost for customers and reduces the attractiveness for stores. “In the current situation, difficulties can arise for various reasons, but this is not a reason to give up and not look for and not implement various payment options with Russian bank cards,” Alexey Voylukov is sure.

Maxim Buylov, Olga Sherunkova