Rabobank is preparing a full Netherlands-wide commercial launch of an NFC mobile payments service next year.
The bank's customers with NFC-enabled handsets will be able to apply for 'mobile payment cards' online which will let them make low-value payments through their phones at stores with contactless POS terminals.
Vendor Giesecke & Devrient is supplying its Trusted Service Manager offering as a managed service, enabling the provision of the card information to consumers' phones over the air.
Jeroen Verrijdt, director payments and savings, Rabobank Nederland, says: "As Rabobank we see a steep increase in the use of smartphones for payments in the Netherlands. We already have more daily users of mobile banking than we have for internet banking. We plan to follow our customers in these developments and want to focus on smartphone developments as in mobile NFC payments."
Last July the bank, ABN Amro, ING, KPN, and Vodafone called time on their mobile wallet consortium, dubbed Sixpack, citing cost and timing issues. Since then, several of the partners have piloted contactless m-payments in the city of Leiden but have now gone their own way.