Visa Europe and leading Spanish bank CaixaBank along with mobile network operators Orange, Telefόnica and Vodafone, have announced the launch of Europe’s largest commercial mobile contactless payments service.
From February 2014 CaixaBank customers will be able to make contactless payments quickly and safely using their contactless-enabled smartphones. The partnership with Orange, Telefόnica and Vodafone enables the card details of customers who register for the CaixaBank mobile payments service to be encrypted and securely stored on a contactless-enabled SIM card. These customers will then be able to use the CaixaBank mobile banking application to easily manage their money and make contactless payments globally anywhere they see the Visa contactless symbol.
With Orange, Telefόnica and Vodafone’s combined customer base accounting for more than 80 per cent of the Spanish market, the service will be available to an extensive number of consumers from the outset.
Nicolas Huss, CEO, Visa Europe said: “This week’s game-changing launch is yet another example of how Visa has gathered together a range of market players to offer an exciting new service to Spanish consumers – one that we expect to see expanded further in Spain and to other European markets in due course.”
“Visa Europe’s approach to bringing innovative new payments services to market is built around developing an ecosystem of partners. We believe that this creates the most fertile ground for introducing new services to the mass market, capitalising on the trusted relationships that consumers have with their banks, mobile providers, favourite shops and Visa alike.”
Juan María Nin, CEO, CaixaBank said: “CaixaBank’s adoption of mobile contactless payments comes as part of an overall strategy to use innovation as a means of improving services for customers.
With contactless technology now being supported by most new smartphones, this mobile payments service brings fresh benefits to users and merchants alike, including speed, simplicity and security. Under this agreement, CaixaBank, Spain’s leading bank and a global benchmark in payments systems, will also be a market leader in mobile contactless payments.”
CaixaBank customers will be able to make mobile contactless payments at any of the 325,000 Visa contactless-enabled terminals across Spain* or the 1.2 million Visa contactless-enabled terminals across Europe*. Spain is one of Europe’s leading markets for contactless technology with over 15 million Visa contactless payments made in the past 12 months*, and a strong history of payments innovation. 2010 saw CaixaBank launch Europe’s first real-world mobile payments pilot in the Spanish town of Sitges, and in subsequent years roll out contactless cards (2011), the CaixaWallet application (2012), and a sticker-based mobile payments service, TAP Visa (2013).
The CaixaBank mobile payments service will launch in January 2014 with selected customers of Orange, Telefόnica and Vodafone who frequently make contactless card payments with their Visa cards today. The service is expected to be fully rolled out by February 2014..
