The Kyivstar mobile operator plans to launch an application for own Smart Money financial service within one month, Head of the mobile financial services department of the operator Taras Horkun has said.

"We originally designed our financial services in a way that we could cover those cities and towns where the bank network is poorly represented. We have the opportunity of creating financial services that can be managed via SMS messages not only from smartphones, but also from button phones," he told journalists at a meeting in Lviv on June 29.

According to Horkun, now the service is undergoing the latest testing, and if the testing is successful at all stages - within a month the application should appear in the markets.

He said that Smart Money from Kyivstar is not a competitor of the banking system, since the application includes services that the operator launches together with banks, in particular, Ukrgasbank and Pravex-Bank, and there are certain segments that are represented by other banks.

"We are open and we cooperate with different payment systems and various banks. Our electronic money is the money of the Prostir system of the National Bank. We consider ourselves as part of building a national program for establishing Cashless Economy in Ukraine," Horkun said.

In turn, President of Kyivstar Peter Chernyshov said that at the start, the system would have about 3,000 different services for which it will be possible to pay either using the Kyivstar electronic wallet or using a bank card.

"We created a financial company. Finally we have got all the required permits and licenses in Ukraine and launched our own processing. Soon the Smart Money mobile application will appear in the markets," he said.

According to Chernyshov, in the application it is planned to realize the following opportunities: consumer loans; fast lending to buy phones in Kyivstar stores; a bank card linked to a mobile account; Google payments from your mobile account and cash withdrawal from the ATMs using a smartphone.

At the moment, the site of the operator entitled "Smart Money" includes services implemented in the "Mobile Money" application from Kyivstar, in particular: transfer of funds from a card to another card, recharging of a mobile account, payments for Internet, utilities, recharging of bank cards, recharging of games and social networks, online shops, fines, insurance, international communication, railway tickets, ordering and repaying a loan and other services.

As reported, Kyivstar in mid-January 2014 jointly with Alfa-Bank (Kyiv) launched the NFC service of contactless payments, which requires a user to own a bank card linked to a SIM card and a special app. However, this service has not become very popular.

In August 2014, the operator registered StarMoney LLC to provide financial services (except insurance and pension funding), financial leasing, lending and other types of monetary intermediation, as well as data processing and information publishing on websites. The charter capital of the new company is UAH 7 million and a year later it was increased to UAH 61 million. Kyivstar fully owns the company.

StarMoney LLC in June 2016 received a license from the National Bank of Ukraine for money transfer in the national currency.

The National Bank of Ukraine in November 2017 gave the status of the operator of a payment infrastructure to Kyivstar's subsidiary Starmoney LLC.

In December 2017, Germany's Wirecard, the leading specialist for digital financial technology, and Kyivstar, launched processing services, including real-time solutions, on the VEON platform in Ukraine

Kyivstar's shareholder is international group VEON (earlier VimpelCom Ltd.). The group's shares are listed on the NASDAQ exchange (New York).