Yandex.Money Mobile App to Enable NFC Payments

April 20, 2016

Yandex.Money, the largest online payment service in Russia, will employ NFC technology to offer users contactless payments from its Android mobile app. Users can now make payments in supermarkets, the metro, and other public places, simply by placing their smartphone up to a POS terminal.

To enable NFC payments, users can simply update the Yandex.Money app on their phones. A virtual MasterCard will be issued to their account automatically; its balance is the balance of the user’s Yandex.Money e-wallet.

NFC payments by MasterCard are currently being accepted by more than 4 million merchants in 74 countries. In Russia, that number is up by 138% in the last year. By 2015, NFC payments were available on more than 600 million smartphones globally, according to the annual report by Deloitte.

Based on Gartner’s research, in 2015, the number of NFC mobile payment users had reached 53.9 million worldwide. A survey by Gemalto and J’son & Partners showed that last year in Russia, more than 60% of users between the ages of 16 and 35 reported that they would like to start using NFC payments.