New metro fare payment method in Kazan to be extended to shops and restaurants
No need to take out a card or phone
A new payment method for public transport has appeared in Kazan — using biometric data. The opening took place with First Deputy Prime Minister of Tatarstan Rustam Nigmatullin at Kremlevskaya station. Now the service is available at all stops in the city and allows passengers to pay for travel “by sight.”
It is planned that payment by biometrics will make up 1-2% of all trips, and up to 130,000 per day.
“This is a new technology that was developed by the National Payment Card System and the Centre for Biometric Technologies in accordance with the federal law On the Implementation of Identification and (or) Authentication of Individuals Using Biometric Personal Data. For recognition, we used our own technological solutions that are registered in domestic software,” noted Deputy Chairman of the Board of Ak Bars Bank Alexander Nesterenko.
To start using biometric payments, you must:
- register in the Unified Biometric System in the State Services Biometrics application;
- link biometrics to a bank payment instrument that supports such payments. This can be done in the Fast Payment System (SBPay) application.
There is no need to carry cards or a smartphone with this type of payment for travel. This is especially convenient if the passenger has forgotten his wallet or phone at home or simply does not want to carry extra things with him. The payment process takes a few seconds, without the need to take out a smartphone, look for a card or enter a PIN code. The face recognition system is intuitive and does not require additional training.
“It is important to form a habit”
By the end of the year, it is planned to expand the use of the technology to stores and restaurants. Currently, in some locations, only the “smile payment” system works. In the future, it is planned to develop a network of retail outlets where payment by biometric data will be available. Their goal is to increase the number of such facilities to 10,000 in the next two years.
“This is a full-fledged solution that allows interaction between banks to ensure payment for metro rides. At the moment, we have nine issuing banks in the pilot — first, there were four. It is important to form a habit, because those who use the metro, they make a certain journey every day — to work and from work. And it is important for the technology to develop to provide complimentary services to residents of Kazan,” said CEO of Mir Dmitry Dubynin.
15 rubles per metro ride
“This year, we have three more projects planned to launch — in Yekaterinburg, Samara and Nizhny Novgorod, and later it will be extended to all regions of the country where there is a metro,” summed up CEO of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation Vladislav Povolotsky.
It should be reminded that a similar system is already operating in Moscow. Since 15 October 2021, passengers of the capital's metro have been paying for travel using the facial recognition system. Moscow has become the first city in the world where this system has worked on such a scale — at more than 240 metro stations.
The number of service users has exceeded 340,000. On weekdays, the system is used about 140,000 times. Head of the Department of Transport Maxim Liksutov said that the department expects to attract up to 500,000 users.