MOSCOW, August 2 Sberbank is confident that it will be able to reach an agreement with the Central Bank and the National Payment Card System (NSPK, operator of the Mir payment system) on the creation of a single payment QR code, Sberbank Senior Vice President Dmitry Malykh told reporters.
In June, the Bank of Russia announced that it had launched a pilot project to use a universal payment QR code together with the NSPK and a number of banks. At the same time, Sberbank, Alfa Bank and T-Bank announced that they were creating a consortium to implement a single payment QR code as an alternative to the QR code from the Central Bank based on the NSPK.
«
«We have been developing our platform since 2019, and 18 banks are currently connected to it. Together with partner banks, we offer NSPK to integrate our platform to unite players so that the client can read the QR with any mobile application, without having to update, and the payment would go through — via the SBP, through partner banks, and in the future, payment in digital rubles can be integrated there,» he said.
«There is no need to abandon any idea, you just need to agree,» Malykh said, answering the question of whether the Central Bank would abandon the idea of creating its own QR code. When asked whether it would be possible to agree with the Central Bank on the creation of a single payment QR code, Malykh replied: «Of course, this is our daily work.»
He also added that if a new platform is created on the basis of NSPK, then there is always the possibility of setting up compatibility between the two platforms. The top manager noted that on the basis of the platform promoted by the consortium, partner banks will be able to implement new functionality and payment scenarios, for example, payment in installments.
Meanwhile, the head of Sberbank German Gref noted in February that if the Central Bank creates a single payment QR -code only on the basis of its Fast Payment System, then financial market participants will lose interest in innovation. At the same time, he proposed combining Sber’s own platform for payment by QR code and the regulator’s platform to create the so-called omni-QR, which would allow maintaining competition.