Spanish Banks Speeding Up Mobile Contactless Solutions Adoption

Three Spanish banks have started initiating NFC-based projects: La Caixa, is about to equip 500 ATMs and deploy 17,000 compatible POS devices at Barcelona retailers during H2 2012. It is also planning to issue one million contactless cards (by end February, 50% of its customers should have received a new one).

BBVA and Bankia for their part have jointly started providing contactless equipment to 7,000 points of sales in Madrid. For now, the busiest stores with high percentages of low-value transactions are concerned. In 2012, this project will be expanded with the aim to reach two million customers.

Visa Europe is also taking part in these initiatives. According to the banks, the contactless cards have first been favoured but mobile NFC payments are also envisaged.

Just a few days before the Mobile World Congress 2012 (soon to take place in Barcelona), these developments are asserting the banks’ investment effort and are in line with the mobile payment pilots launched in 2010 by La Caixa and Visa (among others) in Sitges (“Mobile Shopping Sitges 2010”). After three months of conclusive testing, 60% of the partaking customers had already opted for mobile payment –this experiment required the help of 1,500 Telefónica and La Caixa customers as well as 500 merchants (see January-February 2010 Insight).

Also, in May 2011, Orange, Telefónica Movistar and Vodafone collaborated to promote NFC technologies and improve the compatibility of mobile devices: they intended to create a stable ecosystem and reduce the risk of market fragmentation; they did not plan any common commercial developments then.

As far as contactless cards acceptance is concerned, in April 2011, La Caixa did have compatible ATMs installed in several towns– including Sitges and Barcelona (see April 2011 Insight).

Category : Alertes quotidiennes