PARTNER NEWS: Morocco-based CIH Bank has launched CIH Pay, a mobile payments service that allows customers to digitize their bank card on their smartphone and use it to make in-store contactless payments.

The bank is using Dejamobile’s ReadyToTap Payment platform to launch the first NFC mobile payment service of its kind in Africa and is initially making CIH Pay available for Mastercard card-holding customers with an Android NFC mobile device.

Dejamobile’s solution combines a tokenization hub with a white-label mobile wallet and payment SDK, enabling CIH Bank to offer a secure mobile payment service that includes a complete strong authentication module.

“Tokenization brings a greater degree of freedom than the bank card,” says CIH Bank’s Driss Bennouna.

“With online account opening, customers will be able to start using their card by digitizing it before picking it up from the agency.

“The current version of CIH Pay is an initial version that will allow us to assess the market and the reaction of our customers to this new payment method.

“We will continue to listen to our customers and develop CIH Pay according to their needs.”

“While we have been deploying this technology with French and European customers for several years now, we are proud to bring this innovation to another continent and to have the confidence of an innovative bank in terms of the digitalization of banking services,” adds Dejamobile co-founder Houssem Assadi.

“We hope that this first deployment will lead to others in North Africa, a market that is just waiting to develop.”