Tag: mobile banking

NFC technology to be used for mobile payments test

| February 27, 2013

NFC Technology Dutch Banks Mobile PaymentsDutch banks have partnered up in order to give near field communication transactions a trial run.

Three Dutch banks have partnered together in order to run and observe a pilot program that will use NFC technology that they may then implement in order to provide their customers with mobile payments options.

This new test will involve the participation of two other large companies as well.

Both the wireless carrier called KPN, and the credit card giant, MasterCard, will be joining up with the three banks in the Netherlands in order to run the trial period. This will help them to investigate the use, success, and potential adoption rate that can be expected from a mobile wallet that is based on NFC technology in the country.

The banks involved in this NFC technology pilot program include ING, ABN Amro, and Rabobank.

The NFC technology mobile payments pilot program is expected to begin during this upcoming summer. It will involve the participation of a select group of individuals in Leiden, Netherlands. These people will be offered a mobile wallet that uses the near field communication tech in order to allow them to make payments using their smartphones.

The test itself will be conducted by Mobile Payment Netherlands, which is a venture that is backed by the three banks that are involved in this trial period. The test group of individual participants will include 1,000 people who already have accounts with at least one of the three participating banks. They will be given the opportunity to use their NFC technology enabled smartphones in order to make payments when they are purchasing products and services from various locations around their city.

The Mobile Payments Netherlands initiative through the three banks that have partnered together in this effort are what is left of the so-called “Sixpack” of Dutch banks and carriers that had initially come together in 2011 in order to build a solid infrastructure for smartphone transactions within the country. Last year, that original group fell apart, but it has partially rebuilt itself in this latest project through the smaller number of participants.

Each of the Dutch banks will be performing their own assessments of the NFC technology based pilot program in order to be able to create their unique individual strategies for mobile payments.

Mobile payments technology spending this year will be $118 billion

| February 16, 2013

Mobile Payments SpendingThis represents a considerable increase in the amounts that banks were spending on this IT last year.

An Ovum report has just been released, in which its results have shown that retail banks around the world will be boosting their spending on technology by 3.4 percent, this year, which reflects a serious growth in the mobile payments sphere.

This will bring the total amount that banks intend to spend on IT up to $118.6 billion, worldwide.

The Ovum industry analysts released their forecasts that said that North America’s retail bank spending on mobile payments and other technologies will increase by 3.3 percent. Europe would be seeing a rise in its spending by 1.8 percent. It is Asia that will see the highest amount of spending growth, with an increase of 5.1 percent.

In the mobile payments and banking report Ovum stated that the importance of this channel is evident.

The business trends report indicated that mobile payments and banking would become a “clear IT investment priority in 2013” for retail banks. It also indicated that the amount of spending for all online channels would grow by 6.2 percent this year. That included smartphones, tablets, and PCs, alike.

Also included in the report, was the speculation that data privacy and credit risk management would be among the primary drivers of technology spending in terms of 2013’s mobile payments and online banking. It stated that the worldwide MIS investment would hit the $6.4 billion mark before the year is over. It also pointed out that banks in North America would be spending $2.3 billion in this domain, and this will represent 5.1 percent of the overall spending within that department.

Ovum’s release indicated that within that continent, the growth in the spending for technology was an indicator of increased efforts to reduce costs and to place more concentration on various digital channels and marketing efforts that would help those financial institutions to boost their revenue growth alongside customer satisfaction.

Ovum senior analyst for financial services technology, Jaroslaw Knapik, explained the predictions about mobile payments and technology spending by saying that “Whilst regulatory compliance has certainly fuelled a significant amount of the investment predicted in the forecast, it is by no means the sole driver,” adding that “The level of investment in digital channels gives a clear indication that banks are fully cognizant of the growing expectations of their customers, as well as the opportunities they present.”