International payment system Mastercard and Swiss watch brand Swatch have announced the launch of new contactless payment service SwatchPAY! in the Russian market.

Plusworld.ru reports that now Mastercard holders in Russia can pay for purchases in a simple, convenient and secure way – one touch on a Swatch watch. Russia will become the third country after Switzerland and the Netherlands to launch the service. Watches from the SwatchPAY! collection, which enable users to make contactless payments, will be available in Swatch stores in the nearest future.

In order to make payments via watches, the users need to install SwatchPAY! app (available for iOS and Android) in smartphone and add to the watch the SwatchPAY!-compliant Mastercard, issued by a Russian bank, by scanning it with the smartphone camera or entering the data manually.

After that the users can pay for purchases via SwatchРAY! watches and manage payment activities in the app and follow their expenses easily.

“Mastercard has made many technological novelties available to people in Russia. We are happy that SwatchPAY! is among these novelties. Russia is open to them: a MasterIndex study shows that the popularity of gadgets with payment functions has grown by 30% in 2018 as compared to the 2017 index,” said Business Development Director at Mastercard Russia Dmitri Tartyshev.

According to the partner agreement, customers can buy Swatch watches and activate the new service, available only to Mastercard holders, in all three countries – Switzerland, the Netherlands and Russia. SwatchPAY! operates on 4 models in SwatchPAY! collection, which are equipped with NFC module hidden under the clock dial.

The service works on tokenization technology Mastercard Digital Enablement Service. When a Mastercard is added to the watch, its 16-digit number is replaced with a unique token. It differs from the card number and it can’t be used for making payments with another device.

The partner of Fintech section is