Bankinter plans to close 2014 with 30,000 customers using its mobile payments system

Bankinter expects that before the end of the year more than 30,000 customers will use the Mobile Virtual Card solution, an innovative system that allows making with the mobile phone from payments in merchants, restaurants or petrol stations to electronic shopping in online stores. Bankinter has worked during the last two years with the company Seglan and Visa Europe in the development of this solution, which uses Host Card Emulation (HCE) technology, the same one used in the Google Android operating system, which enables financial institutions to make highly safe mobile payments with no need to reach new agreements with telecom operators.

Commercially available from today, the Bankinter´s Mobile Virtual Card system is characterized by its simplicity. The customer only has to download an application on the Smartphone from an Apps store and registers on the website of the bank to virtualize a Visa card in the mobile. Within few minutes, his/her mobile is enabled as payment media. Then, each time the customer will make a payment or a refund at a contactless point of sale terminal (POS) in a physical store or online, the application generates a virtual card, which disappears when the transaction ends. The application, unlike other solutions available on the market, has the advantage of allowing payments even if there is no mobile coverage. This guarantees to pay abroad or at establishments or shopping malls where there is no full coverage.

Also, this solution, as being based on the EMV standards, well-established in the market, does not require for deployment of any modification to the existing infrastructure (Point of Sale Terminals) for contactless payments in the merchants, both in Spain and in abroad. At present, 40% of POS that exist in Spain are compatible, a percentage that rises to 65% in large cities like Madrid or Barcelona. Furthermore, it also allows the bank to be able to define, in a fully autonomous manner, its own business model and brand image in mobile payments, without requiring third party intervention.

'Google's announcement last year to support HCE technology in its new Android operating system is a before and after for the final development of mobile payments. In this sense, we believe that the Mobile Virtual Card solution is the best on the market, and the only one that allows to the smartphone to generate credit cards in real-time, for a single-use, with limited time validity and without the need for coverage to make payments, combined possibilities that no other technology offers on the market', says Jacobo Diaz, Director of Innovation and Products in Bankinter. In this regard, Diaz says, 'This system eliminates the main difficulties that are slowing today the commercial launch of NFC payments.'

'Our clients and partners across the world are continuously searching for flexible, inexpensive and secure solutions to make mobile payments possible. We work alongside our partners in order to equip mobile devices with one of the technologies available, whether using Near Field Communication (NFC) with Host Card Emulation (HCE), an embedded secure element or a SIM-based solution, so they can replicate the functionality of the contactless card and allow their use on the contactless acceptance infrastructure that is currently being implemented across Europe, including Spain. Our challenge is to industrialise the process whilst also reconciling the needs of all of the different players - such as card issuers, MNOs, device manufacturers and the business interests that lie behind the various mobile operating systems. Despite this technological and commercial complexity, Visa Europe now has more than 62 such programmes live or committed. Projects, such as this one from Bankinter, get us closer to our objective of allowing our cardholders to pay securely with their Visa card through any device at any point of sale anywhere in the world', stated Bertrand Sava, Visa Europe's general manager for Southern Europe', states Visa Europe's general manager for Southern Europe.

The application is available for NFC smartphones with the latest Android features, such as Samsung Galaxy 4 and 5 and for Blackberry 10. Later, it will be for Windows Phone and iPhone.