Last week PrivatBank, Ukraine’s major innovation-friendly bank, announced the launch of Apple Pay, Apple’s mobile payment and digital wallet service, for its cardholders in Ukraine. The service is available to holders of both credit and debit cards, Visa or Mastercard.
Presenting the service as “one of the most expected payment innovations in Ukraine,” Dmytro Krepak, Acting Group Country Manager at Visa, said that Ukrainians are expected to accept Apple Pay easily. “Today three quarters of POS terminals in Ukraine already support contactless payments,” he noted.
Krepak believes that the introduction of Apple Pay will “accelerate the digitalization of the Ukrainian economy”
“Smartphone payments are very popular globally, while in Ukraine this trend is very dynamic. For the past year, the number of tokenized Mastercard transactions has grown by 14 times in Ukraine, with shops, transport, cafes, restaurants and gas stations being the most popular places to pay via a smartphone,” stated Vera Platonova, Mastercard’s general manager in Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and Central Asia.
In early 2018 the Ukrainian government presented a roadmap for developing digital economy and society in Ukraine in the upcoming years (2018-2020).
