FIT (PayQR)

FIT LLC is an international team of professionals in banking and IT business with many years of experience in e-commerce and mobile commerce.

History

2024: Founder Gleb Markov buys the company from shareholders

On April 11, 2024, it became known that the founder of the PayQR payment service Gleb Markov bought the company from shareholders. The amount of the transaction as of the specified date has not been officially disclosed.

The PayQR service, launched in 2013, allows you to quickly and securely make purchases through QR codes. In PayQR, bank card details are converted into token keys, which are stored by the distributed method in encoded form on secure PayQR cloud servers. The transfer of funds is carried out by token automatically without the participation of third parties by the PayQR bank. Stores never receive card details or tokens to them. In the PayQR applications themselves on smartphones and any other devices, information about card details and tokens is also missing. This ensures a high level of security. When using the platform, up to 5% of the purchase price is returned as points: they can pay for the following purchases instead of money.

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Earlier, PayQR attracted investments in the amount of $1.5 million from two private entrepreneurs and conducted a round of financing for 300 million rubles with investments by the president and co-owner of the Incom development company Sergei Kozlovsky. The PayQR platform is managed by Fit LLC, registered in Moscow.

Markov reportedly fully bought the company from shareholders, including the Cypriot organization PayQR International Ltd. This is expected to help the service focus on the development of services in Russia in a difficult geopolitical situation.

Now PayQR has completely returned to its "native harbor," where its history began, which will allow it to focus on the domestic market without negative outside factors provoked by the political situation in the world, says Markov.[1]

2015

PayQR announces reward for hacking QR purchase code

On October 6, 2015, PayQR announced an offer of 3 million rubles. in order to find someone who can prove the insecurity of using the bank application of the same name for mobile phones^[2].

QR code (2013)

The term of the transaction is until December 31, 2015. According to the company, the hacker will need to generate a QR code, the content of which will be formed without using the PayQR API, the API of authorized PayQR partners or the GOST R 56042-2014 regulations. In this case, the code should be correctly recognized by the PayQR mobile application as the start of the purchase or payment process. The created code must ensure the transfer of funds according to the details laid in it.

The process of generating a QR code and payment must be recorded in the video. For those who can implement the task so that the process could later be repeated by someone else, PayQR will pay 3 million rubles.

"We propose to monetize the knowledge of those who believe that PayQR codes can be hacked and announce a competition. If someone manages to create a QR code that does not meet the state standard, and the content of which is formed without the PayQR API or our partners, so that the PayQR application recognizes it and makes a payment, then we thank this brilliant hacker, "said Gleb Markov, CEO of PayQR.

PayQR is certified according to the international security standard in the field of processing bank cards PCI DSS version 3.0, has a number of patents for the method of making purchases and payments using a mobile phone.

According to the developers, the free PayQR mobile banking application helps to quickly and safely pay traffic police fines, receipts for housing and communal services and other payment documents with a QR code, make purchases in any place, including online stores, restaurants and retail outlets.

"It's simple: no other app will be able to process our codes as a payment transaction. You can only read them using our service, and it is impossible to create such a code without the PayQR API. That is why we call these codes "purchase codes," and not just QR codes, "Gleb Markov emphasized.

Owner

Until 2015, the owner of PayQR was Vladimir Gorbunov.

2014

Areas of activity

Behind the shoulders of specialists of FIT LLC, participation in such projects as Stripe, ClearCommerce, PayU, Qbank and IntellectMoney. The closest foreign analogues of PayQR are the projects SEQR, PowaTag, Payair, SnapScan and Kuapay.

Areas of activity of FIT LLC (as of December 2014):

• Research into buying activity and forecasting of buying behavior,
• Development of client and server desktop software and mobile applications for banks and processing centers,
• Consulting ergonomics and usability of payment devices (ATMs, bank self-service terminals, trading self-service systems, etc.) both in terms of UI/UX software interfaces and in terms of industrial device design,
• Creation and development of payment projects (Internet acquiring, trading acquiring, mPOS, payment aggregation, electronic wallets, mobile commerce, and so on),
• Advising trade and service enterprises on the acceptance of money transfers in non-cash form,
• Consulting transactional market players in security and certification on the PCI DSS cross-industry security standard,
• Attracting investment in IT, e-commerce and m-commerce,
• Construction of special legal schemes for interaction between settlement participants, including non-residents, in accordance with the current legislation of the Russian Federation and the rules of international payment systems VISA and MasterCard.

As the general director and founder of PayQR Markov Gleb said: "We are engaged in a transactional business - Internet acquiring, electronic wallets and payment aggregators, processing centers, mPOS solutions, self-service banking terminals and the like. All this is very interesting, but absolutely not technological and does not take into account the zeitgeist. Here you can come up with new API formats and offer SDKs and other ready-made solutions to partners, visualize forms for payers in a modern way, and also actively receive certificates according to the next versions of the PCI DSS security standard . But in fact, the process does not change - I take out the card, enter its details on the website or in the mobile application, then enter the code from the SMS from the bank. It's still uncomfortable for people. The concept of PayQR is based on the fact that you need to pay quickly and conveniently, as well as absolutely safely. I don't want to carry all my cards with me, remember the details of each of them and enter them with each purchase. I also want to pay for one purchase with several cards at the same time! Most importantly, I do not want to drive in card details on sites, because viruses can intercept keystrokes, as I do not want to give my card into the hands of cashiers and, moreover, waiters, with whom they disappear for 5-10 minutes. Outside the 21st century window, you can buy in a more civilized way. "

PayQR attracted more than $1.5 million in external funding

The PayQR payment service, which started in the summer of 2014, completed attracting external investments worth more than $1.5 million at the end of 2014. The investors were two private entrepreneurs who received shares in the holding company PayQR. The overall assessment of the project at this stage of financing has not been disclosed.

Abroad, the direction of payment with QR codes is also quite "fresh," but it has already proven itself well. For example, McDonald's, Subway and Starbucks in Sweden have been accepting payments using QR codes for a long time and today the Swedish Parliament is seriously considering a complete rejection of cash in its country.

In 2014, mobile payment technologies in Russia received a "second wind" due to the very large distribution of smartphones. The penetration of mobile phones in Russia is 156%, of which more than 60% are smartphones today, and in 2015 this share will reach 80%. There is a natural substitution, since even a phone for 1,000 rubles in communication salons is already an Android smartphone. At the same time, more than 98% of all smartphones sold are accounted for by only three platforms - iOS, Android and Windows. Everyone has a phone in their pocket, so the prospects are excellent, and the fall 2014 release of Apple Pay further drew analysts' attention to mobile fintech.

"Despite the fame of QR codes, they have not yet reached their potential, as they were absolutely useless to users. But they still retain leadership among information-sharing interfaces when we talk about versatility. NFC cannot be built into every computer, so experiments like Apple Pay do not seem like serious competitors, especially since the share of Android in Russia is 70%, and iOS is only 25%. If you place NFC readers at the box office, then how will the payment mechanics differ from MasterCard PayPass and VISA PayWave cards? QR codes can be placed on advertising stretch marks, booklets, magazines and any other media, can be shown on the screen of any monitors and displays, can be printed and sent to a friend. You can also read a QR code with any phone with a camera (statistics say that there are more than 99.5% of such devices) and you do not need special devices with special chips and the like. And now QR codes also have consumer value, with the help of them operations are carried out, "says Mr. Markov.

"Additional funds raised from investors will allow us to implement the project in an even shorter time frame than was originally provided for by the business plan. Now we are focusing on expanding the functionality of our service, marketing and sales, as well as on integration with trade and service enterprises: at the moment, we have more than 300 partners with signed agreements in line for integration, including many municipal and departmental organizations. Achieving maximum efficiency, of course, depends directly on stable funding. We integrate ourselves with retail outlets and restaurants by incorporating our library into existing trading automation systems and HoReCa, by supporting the suppliers of these cash solutions. For online stores and developers of mobile applications, separate documents and tools for independent integration are provided, which takes no more than 5 hours on average, "adds Gleb Markov and does not exclude that the project will go to the next rounds of investments in 2015-2016.

Decision to buy Scanopay

The project developed at a good pace, meeting the interest of the company's clients and partners, in connection with which in 2014 FIT LLC decided to further strengthen the team that was simultaneously developing a similar business called Scanopay, acquire a 100% stake in Scanopay and combine projects under the PayQR brand to focus the company's resources on this synergistic project. The PayQR payment service is the main subject of economic activity of FIT LLC.

2013: Launch of the "2 Pies" project

In 2013, FIT LLC was the first in Russia to launch a project to make online and offline purchases via mobile phones through scanning QR codes under the working name "2 pies."

Notes