This week, the Russian media began to disseminate information about the plans of local banks to launch a new sbpay payment service. Many argue that this is a new service that will replace Apple Pay with iPhone. In principle, this is only half true. After all, SBPey was available for use before, and although it can fulfill the role of a contactless service, it is not quite the way we are used to. However, for users from Russia, this will most likely be the only alternative, so there is not much to choose from.
SBPey is a payment service developed by NSPK. Its name comes from the Fast Payment System, which is used to transfer money between banks using a phone number. However, the principle of operation of SBPey is to send a payment by scanning a QR code.
Differences between SBPey and Apple Pay
This method has at least three significant advantages: over traditional contactless payment:
- For work sbpay no nfc required. Therefore, it can be used even on the iPhone. The main thing is that there is an Internet connection and a camera works.
- Happy April, 1 SBPey will be supported by all Russian banksconnected to the Fast Payments System. And this, for a moment, is about a hundred banks.
- SBPey works without plastic or virtual cards. The service involves connecting a bank account from which payment is debited.
Actually SBPey service is not a new product. It has been available to Russian users for quite a long time, although not quite in the form in which it will be available now. Just until now pay with iPhone via QR was possible only from a bank application that supports the Fast Payment System. That is, in fact, everything is the same. But not really.
The SBPey application allows, firstly, to combine several banks in itself – just like Apple Pay. You simply link accounts in all your banks to the application, and then pay for purchases from the account from which it is appropriate at the moment. It can be either a credit or a debit account. Secondly, with the help SBPey can pay as with QR codesas well as links on the Internet.
How to set up sbpay on iphone
- Download the SBPey app on your iPhone;
- Launch SBPey and go through authorization;
- Find your bank in the list and select it;
- Link your bank account and phone number.
At the time of publication on 31 March at sbpay app only 60 Russian banks are available. It seems to be a lot, but neither Sberbank, nor Tinkoff Bank, nor Alfa-Bank are on the list. However, already on April 1, connection to the service will become mandatory for everyone. So if you can’t right now connect to SBP due to the lack of a bank, tomorrow this restriction will not be.
After you link your account, you can pay via sbpay with iphone. In fact, such payments are already accepted almost everywhere, and many stores offer discounts for paying by QR. The discount is usually small – usually 1% – but for me, it’s better than none. And since the alternatives in the form Apple Pay is no morethen SBPay becomes a real preferred payment option.
How to pay with sbpay
Pay by SBPey is possible in all stores connected to the Fast Payments System. Usually confirmation of this is posted at the checkout in the form of a special sticker or poster. I saw them in the chain of stores “Red and White”. Therefore, all that is required of you is to warn about QR paymentlaunch the SBPey application, scan the code and confirm the payment.
Of course, it takes a little more steps to make a payment with SBPey than when paying with Apple Pay. For example, to do this, you need to run the application, then run QR code scanner, scan it and confirm the transaction, not to mention the fact that the smartphone must be connected to the Internet. But, as for me, carrying a wallet with a set of cards is no better. And in the absence of fish, as they say, and cancer is a fish.
However, if SBPey service will be popular, I have no doubt that in the foreseeable future, NSPK developers will add support for payment without an Internet connection. After all, they could do it for MirPayby enabling tokenization. The same thing in one form or another can be implemented here. There would be a desire.
