New Hungarian payment system launched, thousands of merchants use qvik

The National Bank of Hungary has introduced “qvik”, a solution that allows instant payments to be made using QR codes with NFC by clicking on a link in a mobile application or by approving a payment request.

With qvik, rolled out on September 1, Hungary is at the “global forefront”, just as it was when it introduced instant payments in the spring of 2020, Barnabás Virág, a central bank deputy-governor, said on Monday, presenting the solution. He added that qvik was free for consumers and was “far cheaper” for merchants than the other available options till now.

The qvik, a new payment solution based on the domestic “Instant Payment System”, has been launched and is already available in some shops and online stores. In a first round, you can pay by scanning a QR code at merchants with mobile card accepting terminals: 4,000 at Raiffeisen and 2,000 at OTP. In addition, OTP has 5,000 active online merchants, another 15,000 merchants are gradually introducing the solution, and from the beginning of next year the bank will start to introduce it at 160,000 traditional POS terminals. For merchants, accepting qvikes payments could be 10-20 basis points cheaper than card acceptance.

A competitively priced, low-cost solution is created. It is free of fees and charges for the public, and it is cheaper than the technologies used so far for merchants.

We can see that interest in the technology is high, but the transition will not take a few days.”The debit card will become a dominant payment method in about 25 years, for qvik it will be shorter: in the next few years, the MNB hopes it can become dominant,” said the vice president.

Anikó Turi, a state secretary at the national economy ministry, said Hungary’s instant payment system had advanced “to the next level” with qvik.

Read more details about qvik in our previous article: New QR code payment system qvik to launch in Hungarian stores on 1 September

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Featured picture: depositphotos.com