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- You need to watch: a single face payment service will be created in the Russian Federation
You need to watch: a single face payment service will be created in the Russian Federation
"Sber and NSPK will unite face payment services in the second half of 2025, Izvestia found out. Customers will be able to connect to the unified system from any bank's application and use a wide network of terminals of the largest player with the ability to read biometrics. The Central Bank supported the initiative, and market participants consider it an important step towards increasing the availability and popularity of biometric services. The operator of the unified biometric system (UBS) noted that this infrastructure will become the basis for the introduction of new technologies - for example, confirmation of the year of birth at the time of purchase of goods with age restrictions. Why "Sber" and NSPK decided to join forces, although in other matters they are usually in conflict for market leadership - in the material "Izvestia".
Face-to-face payment in Russia
In Russia will appear a single service for payments on biometrics from the largest players in the market, found out "Izvestia". The launch of cross-bio-acquiring from the largest bank ("Sber") and the operator of cards "Mir" (National Payment Card System - NPC) is scheduled for the second half of 2025.
"The roadmap for the project has already been developed, and the launch is planned for the second half of the year. We are developing a biometric payment standard, based on which other market participants will be able to launch their biometric services," said Dmitry Malykh, senior vice president of Sber.
In the NSPK "Izvestia" confirmed this information. They specified that the organizations are already working on combining biometric payment services, and in the second half of 2025 Sber will connect to NSPK bioacquiring.
Now, in order to connect to the face-to-face payment service, a client needs to register his data in the unified biometric system (UBS) through the "Gosuservices Biometrics" application or in bank branches. After the information is linked to the system of "Sbera" or NSPK respectively, and then you can attach a card of any credit organization to it - money will be deducted from it.
Nevertheless, there are a number of difficulties. First, only Sber and NSPK applications can be used. Once the unified system is launched, customers will be able to use the mobile application of any bank connected to it, where they will be able to customize payments and track transaction history.
Secondly, now the systems work on different infrastructures - that is, those who use the NSPK application cannot make payments through Sber's terminals. And it is Sber that has the most devices with face-to-face payment acceptance. As "Izvestia" wrote earlier , by 2026 this bank will re-equip 2 million of its terminals to transfer money with one smile - thanks to this new functionality will get every second device on the market.
The launch of a unified bioacquiring system will solve this problem and, in fact, unite the efforts of all market players to develop infrastructure for a new type of payment. Other players are also planning to join the process: almost all of VTB's new equipment will be able to accept biometric payments, and Alfa Bank will replace a quarter of its devices with the latest models in the near future, representatives of the organizations said.
The Central Bank supports the initiative of unification, specified in the press service of the regulator. It emphasized that the service will be built on the principle of equidistance from all players and open to interaction with them.
"Our task is to build an interbank platform of biometric services. This means that customers of any financial organizations will be able to pay for purchases using biometrics regardless of which bank-bioacquirer serves the merchant," explained Maxim Krukelis, director of the operational and technological department of the NSPK.
Why pay by biometrics
"The Bank of Russia notes a steady trend towards the use of biometric technologies," the Central Bank's press service clarified.
Payment preferences of citizens are changing, the regulator noted. The development of technologies leads to the fact that the share of non-cash payments is redistributed in favor of non-card methods, including bio-acquiring. The Central Bank is also actively promoting the creation of infrastructure for secure biometric services.
The number of registrations in the unified biometric system, which stores the faces and voices of Russians submitted in banks and on "Gosuslugi", is approaching 3 million, the press service of its operator, the Center for Biometric Technologies (CBT), told Izvestia. At the same time, about 80% of users have connected to the system in 2024.
The launch of the united service for bioacquiring will also help popularize this method of payment, believes Nikolai Kozak, deputy chairman of the board of Dom.RF Bank.
In the long term, the face payment service will allow for the realization of a number of seamless user scenarios, the CBT said. For example, in one operation it will be possible to carry out payment for goods and age confirmation or payment for hotel stay and registration in the room.
At the same time, the unification of systems should make the launch of such services cheaper for other banks, said Natalia Milchakova, a leading analyst at Freedom Finance Global. Usually the cost of developing and manufacturing devices capable of reading biometrics is high. But from the second half of the year, market participants will have access to a wide network of terminals from Sber, which already accept the new payment method.
Risks of face-to-face payment
However, in the case of biometrics, the most important thing is not so much the availability of technology as the trust in it, believes the representative of the bank "Zenith" Mikhail Voronko. Such payments cause negative emotions in people - it is natural that people fear for the safety of their data against the background of the growth of fraud.
Now all biometrics of Russians are stored in a single state system - EBS, which was created precisely for the protection of such data, recalled in the press service of its operator CBT. The database is protected according to the strictest requirements, and the information in it is stored in encrypted form and never leaves the system. When making a payment, the bank receives from it only vectors (anonymized sets of symbols), which are compared with the client's image on the terminal at the point-of-sale. Also, all services use technologies that help distinguish a "live" person from their photo, video, mask or dipfakes.
Bioacquiring provides a simpler and more convenient customer experience, so this technology is very promising for the payment market, said economist Andrei Barkhota. If earlier only the largest banks had the resources for its large-scale implementation, after the merger of Sber and NSPK services, smaller players will also have them.
In the future, the driver of industry development will be the simplification of the method of biometrics - simply in the application of the bank, without the need to download a third-party utility, as now, believes the head of the department of development of transactional products of Alfa Bank Nikolai Volosevich.
"Sber and NSPK have decided to join forces in terms of bioacquiring, although they are usually in confrontation for leadership and competition in the market. It is especially interesting that this is happening against the background of active disputes around the non-alternative fixing of the universal QR code from the national payment system in retail outlets, recalled Andrei Barkhota.
The confrontation between Sber and NSPC in one segment of the payment market and cooperation in another is a logical way of developing this conflict, concluded Andrei Barkhota. Bioacquiring is a modern and technological alternative to QR codes, that is why Green Bank and other credit organizations can bet on them, maintain their positions despite the NSPC expansion, and attract new clients with more convenient services.
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