You are in the underground in Prague, without a ticket. There a ticket inspector comes! What to do – to run back by an escalator or pay a fine?… You take your mobile phone, send SMS and voila – your travel is paid and you can show the inspector the screen of your smartphone with a clear conscience.
Or imagine another situation: you came to your grandmother, decided to buy some bread, but how unlucky – a local supermarket doesn’t accept bank cards and you didn’t take your wallet. You are too lazy to go back. You take your mobile phone and… pay through it.
Today we have become one step closer to such opportunities. The Government Committee approved a draft resolution that will create a market of new services – mobile payments.
We hope that the Government will soon approve our initiative developed jointly with the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine, and millions of Ukrainians will be able to use a mobile account to transfer funds or pay for goods and services.
Both situations will be possible due to the mobile payment system. Today, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the resolution, which was developed by BRDO and will create a market of new services. The BRDO Office estimated that 7.9 million people will use mobile financial services in two years. The total market volume will be 17 billion hryvnas. It is expected that the amount per user will be $6.91. The monthly market volume will reach 54.6 million dollars, and the annual one – 656.6 million dollars.
This resolution will allow to use your mobile account to:
- transfer funds
- pay for goods and services
- provide subscribers with other mobile financial services.
In many countries, users can pay for goods and services using a mobile account without bank cards. Apple allows paying for its services through mobile accounts in the following countries: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Switzerland, etc. In some African countries, more than 50% of the population use mobile payments. The technology has become an alternative to the banking system.
In Ukraine, two legislative provisions prevented establishing the market of mobile payments:
- According to the Resolution of the CMU No.1740, telecommunication services were subject to a pension tax of up to 7.5%. You had to pay this tax from all the funds coming to your mobile account, even if they were not used for telecom services.
- Compulsory registration of users when returning funds from mobile accounts. Technically, when paying/transferring funds from a mobile account, users obtained these funds in the form of electronic money, which is already used to pay/transfer. But according to the Rules for providing and receiving telecommunication services (Resolution of the CMU No.295), funds are returned to anonymous users only after their personal visit to the operator’s office. In Ukraine, more than 90% of subscribers are anonymous.
From now on, Privat 24 will have a competitor, and Ukrainians will get another alternative to cash.