ArmInfo.The Armenian Card CJSC has announced its plans to stop operating the arca.am application.
The company's announcement reads:
"Dear customers,
"We would like to thank all of you for using our application.
"Our application entered the market in the beginning of April 2019 as the next stage of the development of the previously existing "Virtual Card" payment system, and at that time it was a solution expected and demanded by the market, which provided a new application experience and a range of services in the market, which was available to a small number of participants at that time.
"In essence, the arca.am application has become a prototype and an incentive for banks to process and develop their own applications, and thus we can consider our mission successful.
"At the moment, there are many solutions on the market that essentially cover, in some cases even exceed the range of services available in our application.
"Company "Armenian Card", being the operator of the ArCa national payment system, as well as a unified processing center for the majority of banks in Armenia, has decided to focus on providing technological solutions to financial organizations which are the direct beneficiaries of its services.
"Accordingly, we inform you that from April 15, 2024, operations with the arca.am application will be stopped.
"Until then, if it is necessary, you can save your payment data by exporting them from the corresponding sections of the WEB version of arca.am cabinet, as well as to write out the data of periodic payments / transfers, beneficiaries in order to register them on other platforms later.
"We have big plans for the future, soon we will introduce new, modern products for our partner banks continuing to develop the field of payments and transfers in Armenia. We will always be with you when you make a payment or transfer in a physical or virtual environment by card, phone, smart watch and other means.
"Sincerely,
"A constant and invisible companion to your payments,
Armenian Card"
In a recent interview with ArmInfo, director of Armenian Card CJSC Ishkhan Mkhitaryan said that the company is now working on tokenization of ArCa cards. Thanks to this project, owners of smartphones with the Android operating system will have the opportunity to use their phone to pay for goods and services using local ArCa cards. "This functionality will be used in mobile applications of banks. We are in the final stages of developing this project and will transfer technological solutions to banks over the coming months," he said.
In addition, the company will launch the ArCaPay system in April this year. According to Mkhitaryan, this is a system of transfers and payments through simple identifiers using mobile applications of banks. "That is, in order to make a transfer from one account to another between two banks, it will be enough to enter only the recipient's phone number. There will be no need to know his account number, first and last name, or bank details that need to be filled out today to transfer funds," he explained.
This is the so-called fast/instant payment system. At the first stage, it will work to carry out transfers between individuals, in the future these could be B2B transfers, there could be transfers from the state to individuals and vice versa, as well as payment for goods and services in the physical and virtual environment.
