The Bank of Russia has proposed amendments to the legislation regarding the use of QR codes for payment of goods and services, and has sent the relevant documents to the Ministry of Finance. According to the new proposals, banks will be required to use only the universal QR code based on the solution of the National Payment Card System (NSPK).
The Central Bank noted that all information technologies of banks and technical devices, including trading terminals, should support payment using the NSPK universal QR code. This innovation will significantly reduce the costs of banks and trading companies for connecting various payment instruments.
The regulator believes that the introduction of a single QR code will promote competition in the payment sector, providing equal conditions for all banks, regardless of their size, when connecting to and interacting with the NSPK infrastructure.
The head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, announced last week plans to send the bill for interdepartmental approval. She emphasized that the QR code is not a product, but a technological infrastructure standard that allows market participants to develop their payment services and compete on an equal footing.
It should be recalled that NSPK announced the launch of a pilot project to introduce a universal QR code at the end of June. At the same time, Sberbank, Alfa-bank and T-bank announced a joint work on another single payment QR code based on Sberbank's multi-QR technology.
The pilot project for the introduction of the NSPK universal QR code was completed in early October. The new code allows payments to be made throughout the acquiring network of the Faster Payments System (FPS), making it available to 207 banks and more than 4.8 million points of sale operating through the FPS.
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More than 1.5 million transactions were carried out using the NSPK universal QR code in two months