Russian bank VTB rolls out biometric terminals for retail age verification

Russia may be shut out of current EU-level discussions about age assurance, but that doesn’t mean it’s off the table. Russian companies are developing products to provide biometric age checks, in response to emerging regulations.

Having looked into biometrics for age checks in 2024, the government’s Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media proposed to expand the range of services available through its Gosuslugi mobile biometrics app, allowing users to verify their age with the app when purchasing energy drinks. This is set to expand to alcohol purchases by the end of 2025.

Now, a report from Izvestia says that Russian bank VTB recently introduced a terminal allowing for age verification through biometrics and without the need for identity documents. The age verification process “takes place using the NSPK biometric services platform and the Center for Biometric Technologies (CBT) Unified Biometric System (UBS).”

Customers of Russian banks who have registered in the UBS and linked a bank card or an online banking account in the SBPay application will “have access to payment for goods without a passport.” According to the CBT, as of the beginning of August 2025, more than 7 million people are registered in the UBS.

The report says that “when purchasing products with age restrictions, the biometric system receives a direct request about the age of the buyer. If the buyer is over 18 years old, the operation is approved. If it is younger, the request is rejected. The whole process takes a few seconds.”

This sounds like a facial matching system that would match a selfie with a registered bank account.

Yulia Kopytova, head of the Department of Analysis, Coordination and Product Development and senior vice president of VTB, calls the bank’s offering “one of the first such solutions on the market.”

“But in the near future, it will be possible to pay for groups of goods that require control, for example, age, without the participation of cashiers or store employees, through self-service terminals or vending machines. In the future, this solution can be applied to delivery, if such a scenario is fixed at the legislative level,” he says.

Dmitry Dubynin, CEO of NSPK, Russia’s national payment card system, noted that the service has already been tested. “Next, we will be piloting in real conditions and scaling the network. This solution will allow trade and service enterprises to sell goods that have age restrictions safely and technologically, and will reduce the burden on the workforce.”

The plan appears to be to eventually develop the service for facial recognition-based payments, expanding on Russia’s existing Face Pay system.

Article Topics

age verification  |  biometrics  |  face biometrics  |  retail biometrics  |  Russia  |  self-service  |  Unified Biometrics System