Russia discusses the possibility of incorporation of a payment system via messenger.

Maxim Akimov, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Government Executive Office, said in an interview to RIA Novosti that the idea is currently discussed by regulators and experts in the country.

According to him, while Russia was preparing a program on the development of digital economy, its authors had to face yet another challenge, which is the development of alternative payment systems with the use of messengers.

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“I think that the world of payment cards, as we know it today, will be very soon forgotten. Maybe we will have cards, but what kind of plastic cards will we be using? What services will they perform? I believe that we will be able to do all the payments with smartphones, as well as perform a number of legal procedures,” Maxim Akimov noted.

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He emphasized that the elaboration of Digital Economy program is conditioned by the fact “we need to have sovereign payment system”.

“There is no doubt about it. When we say “we” it should be considered as Eurasian Economic Union with free movement of people, goods and services. We are the largest country in the world by territory and we are among 10 most populated economies. Thus we must have sovereign financial system and applications, developed on that basis,” Russian official concluded.

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