The largest state-owned bank PrivatBank (Kyiv) launched the Apple Pay service on Thursday.
“Apple Pay in Ukraine! Today PrivatBank launched this globally popular payment service,” Ukrainian Finance Minister Oleksandr Danyliuk wrote on his Facebook page. He said that this is the indicator of the attractiveness of the Ukrainian market for global innovative companies.
PrivatBank said in a press release that a credit or debit card of the bank Visa or Mastercard should be connected via Privat24 or Wallet applications to use the new payment service.
“One can use iPhone SE, iPhone 6 and later models of iPhone, as well as Apple Watch to pay in stores,” the bank said.
PrivatBank Board Chairman Peter Krumphanzl later at a briefing said that the arrival of Apple Pay in Ukraine means in practice a breakthrough in the state cashless program.
“This is a big step for Ukraine, on the one hand, from the point of view of innovation, and on the other hand, from the point of view of the state cashless program. This is a big step forward. I think this is very important for Ukraine,” he said.
The head of the retail business at PrivatBank, Oleksiy Shaban, added that the arrival of one of the world’s leading mobile payment technologies to the Ukrainian market is becoming a decisive incentive for large and small businesses to actively switch to cashless technologies. “We expect that for the first month of Apple Pay work in Ukraine a significant increase in the share of mobile payments by our customers will be seen,” he said.
Shaban said that at present more than 2 million customers of the bank are users of the Privat24mobile application.
According to Country Manager of the representative office of Mastercard Europe in Ukraine Vira Platonova, the number of payments using a mobile phone in Ukraine in 2017 increased 14 times, and this resulted in the arrival of Apple Pay to the country.
“Ukraine is a very developed market in terms of contactless payments. In the world in 2017, the number of payments with a mobile phone quadrupled, and in Ukraine it increased 14 times. It is therefore not surprising that Apple Pay came to Ukraine – one of the first countries in our region,” she said.
Platonova said that Ukrainians often pay with the help of mobile devices in retail networks, in transport, in restaurants and at gas stations.
“Payments using a mobile phone are absolutely safe, the level of fraud in these transactions is almost a nil,” she said.
The largest state-owned bank in Ukraine, PrivatBank, saw UAH 3.7 billion of net profit in Q1 2018, which is a 3.3-fold rise year-over-year (UAH 1.108 billion), the bank has said in a press release.
“In the first three months net commission income totaled UAH 3.4 billion… Net interest income came to UAH 3.3 billion. In Q1 2018, the bank earned UAH 6.7 billion of interest income thanks to the expansion of the loan portfolio of individuals by 6% (UAH 2.5 billion) and growth of the portfolio of corporate clients by 18% (UAH 1.1 billion),” the bank said.
As reported, PrivatBank in Ukraine should make profit in 2018 and generate no less than UAH 8 billion of profit starting from 2020, according to the strategy for its development until 2022 approved by the supervisory board of the financial institution.
Nationalized late 2016 PrivatBank in 2017 reduced the consolidated loss to UAH 23.99 billion from UAH 176.64 billion a year earlier.
In total, the bank was capitalized by UAH 155.3 billion through issuance of government bonds.
At the end of June 2017, the Cabinet of Ministers decided to capitalize the bank by another UAH 38.5 billion (almost $1.5 billion) on the basis of the proposals of the NBU and the conclusion of an independent auditor of PrivatBank, EY. The first tranche of UAH 22.5 billion was provided to the bank in July 2017, the second of UAH 16 billion – in December.
Public joint-stock company PrivatBank (Kyiv) is accusing PricewaterhouseCoopers Limited (Cyprus) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (Ukraine) LLC of violation of their commitments during the audit of the financial reports of the bank for 2013-2015. PrivatBank filed a claim to the regional court of Nicosia (Cyprus) against these companies, seeking $3 billion of compensation of losses caused by their actions, the press service of the bank told Interfax-Ukraine.
