Oplati: Can a Domestic Payment Service Compete with International Giants?

The Oplati™ payment system by HTP resident company LWO was presented at the Belarus-Russia business council during the 9th Forum of Regions of Belarus and Russia. The discussion focused primarily on reliability, security, and everyday convenience.

Paying for groceries, refueling your car, making ERIP payments, or transferring money have become basic necessities in today’s digital world. Many of us view smartphone payments as slightly upgraded versions of card payments. While this holds true for cards stored in phones, the actual digital world has progressed much further.

Why should you install the Oplati™ service on your smartphone, and how much can the average Belarusian save by using this domestic payment system? Oleg Kondratenko, Director of LWO and creator of the Oplati™ mobile service, explains.

Oleg Vasilyevich, when you created the Oplati™ service, was the intention to replace plastic cards with virtual QR codes, or did you develop it as an alternative to international payment systems? Plastic card or QR – what’s the difference?

When we were developing Oplati™, we saw that international systems were charging Belarus tens of millions of dollars per year for transactions. While working on bank digitalization, we understood the real situation and knew we could create something for our country in this direction: build a more efficient, powerful and functional system that essentially represents the next evolutionary step for global payment giants like Visa&Mastercard.

A bank card is a 20th century tool. It undoubtedly played a significant role in increasing non-cash payments. Today, on one hand, smartphones and technologies offer much greater opportunities, while on the other hand – they require significantly higher levels of protection. That’s why we generate QR codes on phones, adding an extra layer of information security. The state identification system simply requires an ID number from your passport. And there’s nothing unusual about this – after all, almost everyone who has claimed tax free refunds of 10-20 euros has given all this data, and even their passport if needed, to the first available cashier. But with our payment service, we’re talking about a powerful system to protect our finances.

– Speaking of which, more and more developed and growing economies worldwide are looking towards QR technology. Is this just a passing trend or truly a new level of possibilities?

“Both bank cards and QR codes are essentially just tools – you could call them ‘keys’ to initiate a transaction. A QR code can contain card details (making it a card transaction), link to a domestic transfer system (creating a completely different transaction), or simply specify account details (resulting in an account transfer). The core difference lies in how the merchant’s system processes these options – the crucial point being secure and successful transaction completion.

That’s why we offer multiple integration methods. The most pleasant and convenient experiences give customers not just payment capability, but additional services – whether reserving parking at Minsk National Airport or fueling up by simply scanning the pump’s QR code and hitting ‘pay’. The fuel nozzle and system automatically know what type of fuel you’re using, and when selecting ‘full tank’, the system calculates exactly how many liters you need. Similarly, it knows how much change to return – when you hang up the nozzle, the system instantly calculates and refunds any balance to your wallet. Plus, there’s 3% cashback on all QR payments nationwide.”

– How do the current opportunities for implementing QR payments through domestic services compare with those of well-known international payment systems?

– This is the most painful issue for us. The country has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in developing cashless payment methods, yet current legislation favors card payment systems, stifling any domestic service. We’re not treated as equals, even though we’re also a cashless payment method and over two-thirds of grocery chains, gas stations, and pharmacy networks already process payments via Oplati™.

Even the railway and metro systems have recognized our value – our 0.5% fee is lower than the 1.5-2% charged for card payments. And all urban transport already saves 10-15% on tickets purchased through Oplati™.

Soon, a new version could digitize and virtualize many train stations, saving millions of dollars – after all, digital stations require no heating, cooling, or cleaning since dust and temperature don’t exist in the digital world.

– How profitable is it for businesses today to use and implement Oplati™ payments?

– Income is important for a business. And someone is already using modern technologies, while someone says that installment cards solve everything: they charge 10-15% and let the client pay.
Therefore, almost 10,000 businesses are already communicating and working with Pay, and about 44,000 unique payment acceptance points allow users to receive the goods and services they need.
It is quite expensive for an individual entrepreneur or a small company to buy a terminal for 600-700 rubles and pay 50 rubles a month for it and give another 1.5-3% of the turnover to the bank. We suggest installing the Pay for Business version and paying less than 1% of the turnover. Both the country’s share of non-cash transactions is growing, and our solution is much easier for businesses.

– In your opinion, why would an ordinary Belarusian install another Oplati mobile application on his smartphone when there are already plenty of m-banking services?

– The simplest reason is that we are already replacing 3-4-5 applications, and soon the functionality will expand even more. Even now, I go to my house through Pay when the electronic locks open due to my desire. Or, for example, a parking reservation service, or buying a movie ticket with a seat selection directly in the app store, and it’s convenient to refuel. And in parks, moms and dads with kids save time on queues for tickets. The service was made for people and in a human way to make it easy, fast and convenient. Everything is intuitive – I pointed the scanner at the QR code and paid through Pay.
And in buses, each with a prudent owner, a dozen normal-sized QR codes allow you to pay for travel from almost 2-3 meters. More than 25 million tickets for public transport have been sold through our system, and this number is already increasing by several million monthly – and this is only in urban transport. Besides, 3-4-5% moneyback is very useful.
We strive to be a convenient, easy, and helpful service.

– Here is a recent situation: a malfunction in the processing center system, and that’s it – the plastic card turned out to be just a “plastic” in the hands. It became impossible to pay for purchases and withdraw cash from an ATM overnight. Is it possible to use Oplati at this moment, because this is also essentially a banking product?

– The product is more for banks than a banking product itself, because thanks to Oplati™’s system architecture, soon any bank in the country and worldwide will be able to use it. The Oplati™ system can interact with card processors, but all main processes are independent of them. After all, to top up an account there’s no need to transfer from a card – it can be done through the excellent ERIP service from a bank account.

As for payments, there’s no need at all for any bank card infrastructure. What’s needed is internet on the seller’s side, or an Oplati™-adapted terminal, or a store smartphone with the Oplati™ for Business version. In this case, the buyer can even be without internet. Everything is moving towards possibly having a completely autonomous way to transfer electronic money like cash from hand to hand. For now, this can easily be done with two phones: one shows a QR code, the other scans it. In this case, money moves from one wallet to another. And this happens in a secure environment, easily, quickly and conveniently. Well, if we’re not within steps of each other, then you can transfer an amount to someone you know or ask them to top up your wallet through the system’s cryptographically secure chat.

– There are constant threats to our banks: “We’ll cut you off from international payment systems, and your economy will collapse.” But is this really true? Can a domestic mobile payment service truly become a full-scale national payment solution?

– Even complete digital border closures won’t halt cashless payments in our country. We have ERIP – meaning you can top up your Oplati™ wallet. We have Oplati™ – meaning anywhere cash or card payments are accepted, you can choose to pay via our service if desired.

We originally designed Oplati™ as a high-capacity transnational transaction system. Test data shows we processed 4+ million transactions in 60 minutes – nearly 100 million daily. While currently handling under 500,000 payments daily, we’re prepared for tens of millions per day, as our data centers can scale payment processing capacity exponentially when needed.

All with lower fees and without card terminals. While we don’t produce card processors, terminals, chips or their software (all potentially “abandoned by Western partners”), everything in Oplati™ is our own, secure, and will continue operating smoothly.

If cards “fail”, Oplati™ stands ready to help.
Always, regardless of foreign payment systems’ wishes. I hope our country won’t be disconnected, but if it happens, we’ll simply smile. Widely, sincerely and openly.
We Belarusians are peaceful people… and kind… very much so.