Spain's BBVA has introduced a 'remote control' Wallet app that enables users to activate and disable a host of card functions, from setting up transaction limits to blocking the use of the card for certain activities.
The new version of BBVA Wallet allows users to control the spending on each card, limit its use to ecommerce or take money out of an ATM, as well as temporarily block it if it is lost or reactivate it when the user finds it.
Mehmet Sezgin, head of global payments systems at BBVA, comments: “The new version of BBVA Wallet turns our customers’ smartphones into a remote control to do whatever they want with each one of their cards.
"Personalising cards up to now never meant more than choosing a photo to decorate them, but now BBVA’s customers have the ability to set up their own cards, cancel them and modify each one to meet their needs and circumstances."
BBVA Wallet has achieved more than 570,000 downloads in Spain since launch in December 2013, and is gradually being rolled out overseas, with launches in Chile, Mexico and the US forthcoming.