Tag: mobile wallet

RBC Mobile payments app now includes HCE

| December 29, 2014

The application from the Royal Bank of Canada now supports host card emulation to broaden usage capabilities.

The mobile payments app from the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) has now announced the addition of support for host card emulation (HCE), in a move that it says will give Canadians the ability to use Android based smartphones to complete purchase transactions without having to worry about having the right type of SIM card or being on the correct network.

The bank has built on its existing platform, called the RBC Secure Cloud to encourage smartphone payments use.

According to RBC, this change to its app is “allowing Canadians to pay with most Android mobile phones without worrying about being on the right mobile network or having the right SIM card.” The service will give customers with virtually any Android smartphone that is NFC technology enabled the opportunity to make mobile payments at merchants equipped with Interact Flash contactless POS terminals. The smartphones will function as an alternative to using a traditional debit card.

This new mobile payments technology will be piloted over the winter months by employees of RBC.

RBC Mobile PaymentsThey will be using a number of different mobile networks and types of Android device, said the bank. This trial will not yet be testing the support for MasterCard, Visa, and other types of credit card, and other types of value added service, though the bank did confirm that those would be coming “shortly.”

The RBC executive vice president for digital, payments and cards, Linda Mantia, stated that “We are committed to providing our clients with the most innovative, convenient and secure solutions to pay how they want, when they want — HCE is a critical step.” She also added that through the use of HCE, the smartphone based payments by way of the RBC Secure Cloud become “even easier to use”.

The bank first started developing its mobile payments app back in 2009, and it has gone through a number of different evolutions and additions. This addition of HCE is only the latest move by the bank, which is among the players that are attempting to act the most quickly in order to grab hold of the largest proportion of the Canadian smartphone transaction market.

Mobile wallet from Amdocs targets India’s unbanked

| December 23, 2014

This app has partnered with the State Bank of India in order to reach people without banking access in the country.

The Amdocs mobile wallet app has now entered into a partnership with the State Bank of India for the purpose of reaching the millions of people throughout the country who are unbanked, so that they can have access to digital banking capabilities.

The company has now officially announced its white label solution that targets the underbanked and unbanked populations.

Amdocs provides global customer experience solutions for the telecom industry. It announced that it will be bringing a mobile wallet to the unbanked and underbanked populations of the world. That said, it also made a second announcement, which was of a new partnership that it had opened up with Triotech, the State Bank of India, and Bharat Sanchar Nigram Ltd (the Indian telecom). It has offered its new solution with the intention to be able to reach about 75 million households within the country.

The mobile wallet gives users the ability to complete a range of different types of transaction.

Mobile Wallet App - State Bank of IndiaUsers of the app are able to take part in a broad spectrum of mobile payments and banking capabilities. This includes paying their bills, applying for a microloan, making payments in-store through their debit and credit cards, as well as with prepaid cards.

A significant move by Amdocs that made this new mobile payments and banking solution possible was its acquisition of Utiba, which took place earlier in 2014, and that had already launched its first m-commerce in 2004 in the Philippines.

It is pushing to take part of the massive potential presented by the tremendous unbanked population around the world which, according to the World Bank, is made up of 2.5 billion people. The Amdocs division president of emerging offerings, Patrick McGrory, explained that it is seeing a considerable opportunity to bring together the efforts of telecoms and banks in order to be able to serve that population, particularly as much of the unbanked population of the world also happens to be smartphone owners, making it a potentially perfect fit.