Ukrainians have taken to paying with the mobile devices in a big way.
Cashless payment services Apple Pay and Google Pay only have been working here for a year, but Ukraine already ranks fourth in the world by the number of cashless transactions — paying with phones, smartwatches, bracelets, according to U.S. financial services firm Mastercard.
Mastercard services most of the active bank cards in Ukraine – 25 million out of 35 million.
However, the Mastercard statistics, made public on Jan. 29, do not include cashless payments made with bank cards, but focuses on NFC-transactions only, the ones usually done via Apple Pay, Google Pay or other banking apps that support the technology.
And though Mastercard did not provide the Kyiv Post with the exact number for NFC-payments made in Ukraine, the company did say that every month 25 percent more devices are used to make mobile payments in the country. The big monthly increase, according to the company’s research, is based on the readiness of the population to embrace new tech — 72 percent of Ukrainians want to, or already pay with their smartphones.
Mobile payments are mostly used in the country’s big cities, where most shops have terminals that support the tech. And the Kyiv Metro one can pay cashlessly at yellow turnstiles, simply by placing a phone or a bankcard close to the reader. About 40 million payments have been made this way since late 2015.
And the Mastercard data, combined with these statistics from the National Bank, which collects figures on all the cashless payments, including bank cards, show the trend: Ukraine is going cashless.
In the first nine months of 2018, Ukrainians conducted 2.8 billion cashless transactions worth $32 billion, the NBU report reads. These include purchases made online — in internet stores, and card-to-card transactions — and with payment terminals in stores.
Most of the cashless operations, or 52 percent, took place in shops and supermarkets, where people spend on average $9 per transaction.
And though the majority of Ukrainians (55 percent) still use bankcards only to withdraw cash; and 37 percent of the population doesn’t have a bank account at all, the amount of transactions made with the cards and via apps is steadily growing — the share was only 6.5 percent in 2010.
Meanwhile, only 38 percent of small- and medium-sized businesses accept cashless payments in Ukraine. In the European Union, it’s 60 percent on average, according to Mastercard.
The Kyiv Post’s technology coverage is sponsored by Ciklum and NIX Solutions. The content is independent of the donors.
