Half of Russia's biggest banks miss deadline to connect to CBPay

MOSCOW. July 1 (Interfax) - Half of Russia's systemically important banks have not managed to connect to the CBPay service by the deadline set by the Central Bank, information on the Express Payment System's (EPS) website shows.

A total of 118 banks have connected to the service. Of the country's 13 systemically important banks, Gazprombank , Alfa Bank, Sberbank , Otkritie FC Bank, Rosbank , Tinkoff Bank (SPB: TCS ) and Raiffeisenbank have not connected to the service.

"We don't intend to extend the deadline for connecting [to CBPay]. We believe that, considering the additional time, market participants had the opportunity to plan their time and resources for implementing this service," the Central Bank's press service told Interfax.

In April, the Central Bank extended the deadline for banks to connect to the CBPay mobile app by three months to July 1. They were initially supposed to give clients access to CBPay by April 1.

CBPay is a mobile app for paying for goods and services using all means of payment supported by the EPS, such as QR codes or buttons on websites. CBPay does not use bank card data, all payments are made from the app user's bank account. There are plans to soon enable the app to support payments based on NFC technology.