Contactless mobile payment solution by ICICI

March 16, 2016 Finance Talk Valli Sarvani No comments

Good news to ICICI bank customers. Now, they don’t need to carry their debit card or credit card for making payments. Just their phone can serve the purpose.

ICICI bank yesterday unveiled a contactless mobile payment solution for its customers to make easy payments. As per the Bank statement it is the first contactless mobile payment solution in the country. This facility eases payments as customers who want to use it can simply wave their smartphones near a contactless merchant terminal.

This can be achieved through the usage of virtual cards. And all the electronic payments can be initiated by waving their smartphones near an NFC (Near Field Communication) enabled merchant terminal. The bank in a statement said that they are delighted on launching the country’s first contactless mobile payment solution which facilitates cashless payments for their customers. And customers do not need to carry any debit or credit card, only their smartphone which most people tend to carry always. Thus, now a smartphone is turned into a virtual wallet.

ICICI bank payment solution utilizes Host Card Emulation (HCE) technology which creates virtual cards that can be used instead of physical debit card or credit cards of the bank. Even though the virtual cards bear a different card number from the physical card, the expiry date will be the same. The Bank hopes that the launching of this new service will benefit around 3 crore customers who have debit card and credit cards of the bank. The Bank added that the transactions will be safer and more secure than the normal transactions since there is no sharing of details of card involved during the transaction process.

Initially the solution was launched for the employees of the Bank and it will available to all of its customers in the last week of March after its update of ‘Pockets’ app on Google Play Store.

Image par Gerd Altmann de Pixabay (Free for commercial use)