Starting from this month, Russians will be able to transfer money between accounts in almost all large banks without indicating the card number: the new service will complete the transaction with just the mobile phone number.

RIA Novosti reports that the Bank of Russia has introduced the service through its express payment system. The project is coordinated by Russian FinTech Association, which includes several large banks.

The commercial launch of the service starts in January. At the moment, 12 banks are involved in the testing, and 20 more are expected to join in early 2019.

The Bank of Russia has not made it mandatory for banks to join the new system, leaving it to them for now to decide either way. Sberbank is not part of the system. The largest Russian bank is developing its own platform for money transfers to phone number, which already features Tinkoff Bank and Sovcombank.


Russian Central Bank established express payment tariffs for banks in late November 2018, which made RUB 1 to RUB 6 depending on the transfer sum. The bank won’t charge the fee in 2019 and plans substantial decrease of commission fees for the population.

In the future, money transfer can be made with email as well. Additionally, Russian users will be able to make payments to state agencies and legal entities via this method.

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