Thales Group provided payment protection and card PIN verification for 20 Russian banks.

On the fifth month of Russia’s full-scale military invasion of the territory of independent Ukraine, the French company Thales announced the termination of work in the market of the occupying country.

As stated in the message, the company curtailed all digital security operations in the Russian banking sector: before, the group served 20 Russian banks.

In the Russian Federation, Thales supplied payShield 9000 modules, devices designed for ATMs that protect and encrypt user data. This module provides protection for operations such as PIN verification, payment transactions, payment card issuance, and encryption key management.

War in Ukraine and Thales Group:

Thales Group is an international company that creates high-tech products and services in several areas: digital identity and security, military, aerospace and transportation industries. The company produces hardware security modules for payment systems.

Prior to Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine, competitions for the supply and license of Thales modules and software were announced by Sberbank, VTB, Rosselkhozbank, the All-Russian Regional Development Bank (RRDB) and the West Siberian Commercial Bank, Alfa-Bank.

Thales  came under fire  after volunteers discovered the company’s equipment in Russian military equipment in April 2022 –  the T72B3 tank  and  the BMD-4 Bakhcha . 

The company assured that it legally supplied equipment to Russia until 2019 under contracts signed before the introduction of an embargo on arms supplies to Russia in 2014.

In June, the company announced its intention to stop working in Russia.

(C)UNIAN 2022