Visa and Kazkommertsbank for the first time in Kazakhstan have launched the service of contactless payments using Android-smartphones with NFC chip.
The project is based on Host Card Emulation (HCE) technology, which allows with a special mobile application to create a digital copy of the payment card (or several cards) and to use NFC-antenna of the smartphone for contactless payments. Due to this, cardholders can quickly, easily and securely pay for the purchases with their smartphones, and the banks are able to store information about customer payments in secure cloud storage.
"Visa payWave technology accelerates and simplifies the payment for goods and services, thus creating additional comfort, both for buyers and for sellers. Therefore, contactless payment volumes are growing: today Kazakhstan takes the third place in the CEMEA region in terms of contactless transactions carried out abroad, and 7th place - by the overall volume of transactions with contactless cards ", - said Galym Tabyldiev, regional manager of Visa in Central Asia. - «Visa Cloud technologies allow to use the mobile phone as a payment instrument, allowing to increase the volumes of electronic payments and providing to mobile commerce the new level of performance"
Kazkommertsbank became the first partner of Visa to launch the contactless mobile payments service in Kazakhstan. Now cardholders of Visa cards, issued by Kazkom, can quickly and easily integrate them with their Android-smartphones to pay for goods and services, both on the territory of Kazakhstan and in other countries, where contactless Visa payWave technology is available.
"Today we take the first step toward the abandonment of physical plastic and focus on the smartphone as the main payment instrument", - said Nurlan Zhagiparov, managing director of Kazkommertsbank. - "We want to provide our customers with most advanced services, using the experience and technology of world IT-leaders, among them - the company Visa».
To use the service of contactless mobile payments of Kazkom, it is required to download and install a special application, which is available for mobile devices with Android operating system (version 4.4 and higher) and a built-in NFC-chip. Currently this application is available by the link: https://www.homebank.kz/. Soon it will be publicly available on the Google Play Store.
After installing the application, it is required to register by entering the mobile phone number and card data (it’s possible to add multiple cards): the owner's name, number, expiration date, the CVV2 (the three-digit code on the back of the card). After that, the mobile phone will receive an SMS with a verification code. Next it is required to create a password to log into the application.
After authorization in the application, users can pay for goods and services just by the one motion – contacting by the phone to the contactless POS-terminal. There is no need to open a bank application, only needed to unlock the device.
It is should be noted that to this service, can be enclosed an unlimited number of KKB cards. When paying more than KZT 5,000 users must enter a PIN code, which provides additional security of transaction.
These innovations are part of Visa Digital Solutions - a set of proposals, allowing easily and safely make payments through a variety of devices with Internet access. Trade and service companies, which are already taking payment cards using Visa payWave technology, are not required to install additional software or hardware to their POS terminals.
In 2015, Kazkom has begun mass production of payment cards with contactless payment function and the development of its network. Today, more than 5 thousand contactless POS-terminals of Kazkommertsbank installed in supermarkets, restaurants and other commercial and service enterprises throughout Kazakhstan. By the end of the year the number of such devices of Kazkom will be increased up to 12 thousand. Since the beginning of 2015 the monthly number of contactless payments has increased by 22 times and reached 1% of all card transactions of Kazkom. Today, the monthly volume of contactless transactions of KKB is more than KZT 120 million.