24 July 2015
- Banks participating with the mobile payment platform will be able to offer their customers payments in real time
- The project is open to all entities in the market. Since July major banks have already been working on a pilot, enabling people with instant online current account availability to make payments
Cecabank has developed the "ealia” mobile payment solution, focused on enabling payments between people (P2P) through mobile phones. The service has been offered since July in a pilot project. The top four banks are taking part, with a combined total of 4 million online banking customers. Other banks will join them in the coming months by offering the mobile payments platform.
The mobile payment platform will allow customers to make a payment to someone else via an app provided by their bank, using their personal online banking login, by simply selecting this person in their mobile phone address book. They will not need to know any account identifying details, and will not need to belong to the same bank. The system takes care of contacting the payee and depositing the amount in the payee account in real time.
It is the first time that this kind of service is launched in this country, with instant online availability in the payee's account, after successful recent solutions developed in European banking in the United Kingdom, Sweden and Denmark. “ealia” will be compatible with these solutions.
Mobile payment platform: interoperable and international
The solution will be interoperable with other national and international payment platforms, just as transfers and SEPA debts are now.
The advantages of this service are:
- Immediacy: Customers can make payments any time, anywhere, using their mobile phone. Payments are made directly between customers' accounts at the same time they are authorised.
- User-friendliness: It is very easy to use: it is linked with mobile phones and takes information from contacts rather than having to know the payee's IBAN. This offers a significant improvement to the customer experience.
- Secure: Customers make and confirm payments using their own pin or fingerprint, without having to reveal their account codes.
