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Poland and Italy commit to contactless payments
2 years ago
by admin
in Mobile Payments
From Near Field Communication World (article here)
The move to contactless cards and NFC-compatible point-of-sale terminals is gathering pace with banks in Italy and Poland announcing plans for widespread contactless card deployments this year.
Wave Hello: Major banks in Poland and Italy are shifting to contactless technology in 2010
Poland and Italy have become the latest countries to begin a significant drive towards contactless cards and NFC-compatible point-of-sale terminals.
In Poland, PKO Bank Polski, the country’s largest debit card issuer, is spearheading the move with the announcement that it will begin replacing all its 6.5m debit cards with contactless Visa PayWave cards from mid-2010.
“We believe that placing on the market in a relatively short period of time more than six million microprocessor cards with Visa PayWave functionality will significantly accelerate the development of proximity payments in Poland,” says Zbigniew Jagiello, president of the board of PKO Bank Polski. “This will be a milestone in the process of moving away from cash transactions, which will change the payment habits of the Poles.”
In Italy, Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy’s largest banking group with 11 million customers, has become the first bank to commit to a large-scale roll out of contactless technology. The project, run in collaboration with MasterCard and Gemalto, will roll out first in the Milan area and will then be gradually expanded nationwide.
“Eleven brands of national or European relevance with a presence in Italy’s major cities, spanning from fast food restaurants and supermarkets to sports and home improvement stores, will provide acceptance points,” says the official announcement. “Hundreds of smaller merchants are also expected to join in the program as it unfolds.”
The move to contactless is not going so smoothly in the US, however. Best Buy, the 1,023-outlet consumer electronics retailer, has gone so far as to remove the terminals that it had already installed in a row over transaction fees. According to retail technology blog StorefrontBacktalk:
“After several discussions with Visa produced no agreeable changes,” the chain started removing its acceptance of Visa contactless cards in October, completing the cutoff in November, said one Best Buy executive involved in the decision. The cutoff happened store by store along with POS upgrades.
“Our decision was based on the costs associated with requiring contactless debit transactions be processed as signature debit,” the Best Buy executive said.
In the UK, meanwhile, the conversion seems to be going more easily, with the number of contactless debit cards in circulation expected to double to 10m this year. Presenting Visa Europe’s annual results, chief executive Peter Ayliffe described 2010 as “the tipping point” where the British consumer finally adopts the new technology, according to a report in The Telegraph:
“A number of banks want to issue contactless cards in the UK this year. We’re also seeing it across Europe,” he said.
If the roll-out is a success, Visa hopes to move contactless technology off cards and into mobile phones. Mr Ayliffe said: “This year is important as it gets the infrastructure in place for mobile payments.”
Setefi (Intesa Sanpaolo Group) Selects Gemalto for Italy’s First Large-Scale Rollout of EMV PayPass(TM) Contactless Payment Card
2 years ago
Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Jan 20, 2010 – Gemalto (Euronext NL0000400653 GTO), the world leader in digital security, today announced it is providing Setefi (Intesa Sanpaolo), with its Optelio solution for the first large-scale rollout of EMV PayPass contactless payment cards in Italy. Intesa Sanpaolo is among the top banking groups in the Euro Zone and the leading bank in Italy, offering its services to more than 11 million customers. Gemalto supplied technical support during the launching phase and assisted the bank in upgrading its personalization infrastructure. The project, developed in collaboration with MasterCard, will be first deployed in the Milan area and Intesa Sanpaolo plans to extend it nationwide while upgrading the Point of Sale terminal base.
The new Gemalto technology provides Intesa Sanpaolo customers with a convenient and innovative means of payment, as they simply tap their card on a reader for purchases of up to 25 euros. Eleven brands of national or European relevance with a presence in Italy’s major cities, spanning from fast food restaurants and supermarkets, to sports and home improvement stores, will provide acceptance points. Hundreds of smaller merchants are also expected to join in the program as it unfolds.
Intesa Sanpaolo is the first Italian financial institution to rollout contactless payment cards in significant volumes, leading the way to the introduction of this new technology in the country. Bolstered by its references of more than 50 clients in over 25 countries, Gemalto once again demonstrates its ability to support financial institutions in deploying large-scale contactless payment programs in EMV markets.
“Gemalto’s support and dedication to bringing our project to fruition was remarkable,” commented Andrea Rossi, Cards Operations Manager at Setefi (Intesa Sanpaolo). “We had set challenging requirements for this product, such as a colored card body, as well as very tight deadlines all along the project. The Gemalto teams met all of them.”
“Gemalto is proud to power Italy’s first commercial rollout of contactless payment cards,” added Philippe Cambriel, Executive Vice-President of Gemalto’s Secure Transactions Business Unit. “Gemalto is fully committed to supporting Intesa Sanpaolo in their strategy to expand contactless payment nationwide.”
For more information: http://www.gemalto.com/financial/solutions/contactless_payment.html
About Gemalto
Gemalto (Euronext NL 0000400653 GTO) is the world leader in digital security with 2008 annual revenues of €1.68 billion, and 10,000 employees operating out of 75 offices, research and service centers in 40 countries.
Gemalto is at the heart of our evolving digital society. The freedom to communicate, travel, shop, bank, entertain, and work—anytime, anywhere—has become an integral part of what people want and expect, in ways that are convenient, enjoyable and secure.
Gemalto delivers on the growing demands of billions of people worldwide for mobile connectivity, identity and data protection, credit card safety, health and transportation services, e-government and national security. We do this by supplying to governments, wireless operators, banks and enterprises a wide range of secure personal devices, such as subscriber identification modules (SIM), Universal Integrated Circuit Card (UICC) in mobile phones, smart banking cards, smart card access badges, electronic passports, and USB tokens for online identity protection. To complete the solution we also provide software, systems and services to help our customers achieve their goals.
As the use of Gemalto’s software and secure devices increases with the number of people interacting in the digital and wireless world, the company is poised to thrive over the coming years.
For more information please visit www.gemalto.com.
Contacts:
Gemalto
Rémi Calvet
Tel: +33 (0) 1 55 01 64 10
Mob: +33 (0) 6 22 72 81 58
E-mail: remi.calvet@gemalto.com
Aline Borne
T.: +33 (0)1 55 01 51 05
M.: +33 (0)6 16 29 87 04
E-mail:aline.borne@gemalto.com
Banca Intesa awarded with remarkable Oscard recognition
Maestro PayPass gift card of Banca Intesa was announced the best and most innovative card product in 2008, at Technobank, the ninth international conference on banking technologies in Belgrade this month.
In the competition among over 40 companies that nominated their top achievements in card business, Banca Intesa has been awarded the prestigious Oscard recognition presented to Mr. Sejad Šehi?, head of Payment cards, POS terminals and ATM Office.
Maestro PayPass gift card of Banca Intesa was announced the best and most innovative card product in 2008, at Technobank, the ninth international conference on banking technologies in Belgrade this month.
In the competition among over 40 companies that nominated their top achievements in card business, Banca Intesa has been awarded the prestigious Oscard recognition presented to Mr. Sejad Šehi?, head of Payment cards, POS terminals and ATM Office.
In cooperation with MasterCard Company and Delta City shopping moll, last December Banca Intesa issued the first Maestro PayPass gift card for Serbian market and South East Europe region. Besides comfortable purchase, this card provides its users with number of facilities at more than 50 points of sales in Delta City shopping moll.
The top-up gift cards are unique for having installed the state-of-the-art contactless Maestro®PayPass™ technology providing the fastest payments in a secure way. The card is available to all adults over 40 branches of Banca Intesa in biggest towns in Serbia. The minimal amount to be placed when purchasing this card is RSD 2000, but any amounts can be placed on these cards at 230 branches of Banca Intesa throughout Serbia.
