OREANDA-NEWS. PrivatBank announced the launch of the world's first public NFC-wallet that will allow smartphone users to make contactless payments from any bank account or card without having to purchase any special cards, stickers or phone SIM-cards.

The new technology was presented on the opening day of the banking innovations forum Finnext-2014 in Moscow. During the service presentation the PrivatBank Deputy Chairman Alexander Vityaz reported that this new technology completely solves the problem of contactless payments' availability for mass users and allows easy turning any modern smartphone into a secure electronic wallet.

“Heretofore, any bank had to sign 9 documents on 287 pages in order to provide a client the opportunity of making contactless payments, not to mention the need to issue special card, sticker or using “new” SIM-card of mobile operator,” - said Alexander Vityaz. - “So it wasn't surprising that this technology was so poorly represented not only here, but also in other financial markets”.

NFC-payments via smartphones are accepted by any POS-terminals based on this technology around the world - this technology was tested in Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, USA, Canada, Singapore and other countries. To use smartphone as a NFC-wallet you just need to install the payment software application like Privat24 or LiqPay, log in using your phone number and connect your card account. In the near future, NFC will be operating in one of the most popular payment services UBANK.

The new technology will be available to users of Android devices with a built-in NFC-chip in March (after the official release of the new operating system 4.4 KitKat). Any bank can use this technology to upgrade its mobile services. PrivatBank has already made API of new service public at api.privatbank.ua/nfc.

PrivatBank is one of the most high-tech banks in the world. PrivatBank was the first in the world to implement such technologies as SMS-Banking (1999), OTP-passwords via SMS (2000), P2P-transfers between card accounts (2003), “No Coins” electronic change technology (2009), Online cash collection (2010) and others. In 2012 PrivatBank was one of the first banks worldwide that implemented contactless client service technology using QR-codes. Today every third of the bank's clients uses its services via Internet and mobile software applications.