Payment system Pay-Me

Everyone who traveled across Europe knows that you can pay there with a bank card almost anywhere, from a tiny store to a hypermarket. However, in Russia, though the supermarkets usually accept bank cards, the small businesses are often unable to accept this type of payment. Even though every client has a bank card these days, accepting them is not something small shops can afford.

The client, in a partnership with Alfa-bank, VISA, and the communications company Beeline, decided to create, for the Russian market, a payment system called “Pay-Me” that would make use of smartphones. Their idea was to use any smartphone or tablet as a terminal for accepting the bank card transactions. For this purpose, a special card reader must be connected to the smartphone.

The following tasks have been completed within 5 month, resulting in a turnkey system delivered to the client:

• The hardware was chosen, purchased, programmed, and set up; 
• Mobile apps for iOS and Android-based smartphones were developed;
• The drivers necessary for the interfacing with card readers were developed;
• The integration with the processing bank was implemented;
• Dozens of manuals and other technical documentation were written;
• A website for the company and product was created;
• The second and third 24/7 customer service lines were launched.

As a result, the developed product is now widely used in four countries (Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Belarus) by major banks and mobile operators. “Beeline-business” and Alfa-Bank are proactively selling the terminals to their corporate clients (since 2013, a total of 15,000 devices were sold, and 4,000 connection orders were received). The project was completed in 18 months by a 20-person team that included mobile apps developers, web programmers, an SDK developer for the card reader module, and a team of designers.

Once the main development works were finished, and after a six month period of active technical support, the product was fully transferred to the client, and is now completely independent of the developer.