ICICI Bank has launched a new contactless mobile payment solution that enables its credit and debit users to make in-store contactless payments by simply waving their smartphones near an NFC-enabled merchant terminal.
Dubbed as iTap, the service is available in the Bank’s ‘Pockets’ app. ICICI bank is using the Host Card Emulation (HCE) technology which creates ‘virtual’ cards for ‘physical’ credit or debit cards (Visa/MasterCard) of the bank, as selected by the customer. These virtual cards resides in the bank’s secure cloud server and customers can initiate electronic payments from NFC enabled smartphones by just waving their phone near a contactless merchant terminal. While the virtual card bears a different card number, the credit limit and expiry date remains same as the original physical card.
A one-time unique token number is created by the Bank’s server for each payment via the virtual card and this is encrypted and sent to the merchant’s terminal, without disclosing any information of the card. ICICI Bank has developed this platform in-house, based on the HCE. In order to use the service, an ICICI Bank customer is simply required to click on the Touch & Pay icon on the home screen of the ‘Pockets’ app and select the desired virtual credit / debit card. Once the merchant enters the amount to be charged, the customer can just wave the phone near the POS machine. A text on the phone as well as on the merchant’s terminal will confirm the transaction.
The iTap mobile payment solution has been launched today for the ICICI bank employees and it will be available for customers in the last week of March when the updated ‘Pockets’ application will be available on Google Play Store. An ICICI Bank credit and debit customer (VISA/Mastercard) with an NFC enabled smartphones running Android 4.4 & above will be able to use this solution. The mobile payment solution is available to credit and debit customers of the Bank, irrespective whether their physical card is contactless or not. In accordance with the RBI guidelines, customers can make payments upto Rs 2,000 per transaction with the mobile payment solution.
Rajiv Sabharwal, Executive Director, ICICI Bank, said
We are delighted to introduce a contact-less mobile payment solution that will allow cashless payments using just smartphones, thereby eliminating the need to carry cash or debit and credit cards. The speed of transactions will add momentum to cashless payments. At the same time, it will herald a shift from low value cash payments to electronic payments at physical stores including quick service restaurants and shopping malls where fast transactions are much required. Also, the level of security is higher since the card details are not shared during the transaction process.