Consumers, retailers and other business customers can now remotely verify their identity when opening an account or applying for a loan with Belgium-based Aion Bank by scanning the contactless chip embedded in an ID document with their NFC smartphone or other mobile device and validating the information via a facial recognition check... More
Samsung Pay will go live in Slovakia and the Czech Republic this year, according to media reports in both East European countries... More
“Globally, Visa now has more than 500 active transit projects and has helped a number of cities launch tap to pay solutions over the course of the pandemic,” the payments network has revealed... More
PayPal users in 28 countries across the world are now able to use their PayPal app to make QR code-based mobile payments in stores — and standard seller transaction fees are being waived “for a limited time” for merchants using the new functionality... More
PARTNER NEWS: Raiffeisen Bank has launched an Android NFC mobile payments service in Romania and the Czech Republic that uses Antelop Solutions’ digital payments and tokenization platform... More
Apple Pay is now live in Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia... More
Apple Pay rolls out to Greece, Portugal, Slovakia on Wednesday — Apple Insider — “Following the expansion of Apple Pay into the Netherlands on 11 June, reports indicate banks in three more countries in Europe are adding support to Apple Pay at the same time in the coming week. Believed to take place on June 26, the launches will occur covering Slovakia with multiple banks, as well as Greece and Portugal.”
Apple Pay will soon launch in 16 more countries, including Bulgaria and Croatia — MacRumors — “Mobile banking service Monese has revealed that Apple Pay is also coming soon to its cardholders in Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Lithuania, Liechtenstein, Latvia, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia… Apple Pay is also nearing launch in the Netherlands, Hungary, and Luxembourg for a total of 16 upcoming countries.”
Apple Pay is coming soon to Austria, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Greece, and Romania — MacRumors — “Mobile banking service N26 today on its Twitter account announced that Apple Pay will soon be available in Estonia, Greece, Portugal, Slovakia, and Slovenia, one day after revealing that Apple Pay is coming soon to Austria. Likewise, ING Bank has announced that Apple Pay is coming soon to Romania… Slovakian bank Slovenská Sporiteľňa confirmed that it will start supporting Apple Pay later this year.”
Apple is to charge participating banks a 0.2% transaction fee when its Apple Pay service launches in Slovakia later this year, according to local newspaper Hospodárske Noviny... More
Apple Pay expected to launch in Czech Republic and Slovakia in late February to early March — MacRumors — “Apple Pay will launch in the Czech Republic and Slovakia in late February to early March, according to Seznam Zprávy and Živé… Czech Republic’s two largest banks Česká Spořitelna and Komerční Banka, along with mBank, Moneta, and Air Bank, will reportedly be among the first financial institutions to offer Apple Pay to customers in the Czech Republic. Equa Bank and Banka Creditas may follow suit within the first half of the year.”
Customers save at least 70% time using Innovatrics digital onboarding — Innovatrics — “Users are first tasked to take a photo of both sides of their identification card. Afterwards, they are prompted to take a selfie to verify that the image is actually the same as the picture on the submitted ID. A ‘liveness test’ is performed for added security wherein the client has to follow with his or her eyes a randomly moving dot appearing on the mobile screen.”
Slovakia becomes first to use Google Pay — The Slovak Spectator — “Google is launching its new application, Google Pay, in Slovakia, making it the first country ever to introduce the revamped service… Google Pay is available as of February 28 to clients of Slovenská Sporiteľňa, mBank, Poštová Banka and J&T Banka. Soon, clients of 365.bank will also join.”
Android Pay goes local in Ukraine, Czech Republic, Brazil and Slovakia — Google — “A few weeks ago, we launched Android Pay in Ukraine. Today, it’s available in Czech Republic and Brazil, and soon it’ll be live in Slovakia, too.”
Deutsche Telekom has discontinued its NFC-based MyWallet mobile payment service in Germany, citing a lack of customer use and doubts over whether a SIM-based solution is going to be adopted as a standard in light of “internationally competing companies” investing heavily in competing approaches... More
Customers of Slovakian bank Tatra Banka can now make host card emulation (HCE) based mobile payments using their Android handsets... More
PARTNER NEWS: Digital payment solutions provider Proxama is to supply transaction automation solutions provider Printec Group with its NFC mobile payment, PIN management, tokenization and EMV enablement solutions across Central and South-Eastern Europe. More
More than one billion contactless MasterCard and Maestro transactions were processed in Europe in 2015, up 150% on 2014, MasterCard reports... More
Mobile network operator Slovak Telekom, majority owned by Germany’s Deutsche Telekom, is shutting down its MyWallet NFC service on a temporary basis... More
The volume of contactless payments in Europe is forecast to rise almost nine-fold to 12.2bn in 2020 compared to 2014 and account for 13% of all card payments, according to research released by RBR. The number of contactless cards issued is also expected to treble from 2014 to just short of 700m by 2020 — representing more than 40% of the total regional card base. More
