You've been redirected from MobilePaymentsToday.com to PaymentsDive.com. In March 2021, Mobile Payments Today became a part of Payments Dive. For the latest payments news, sign up for the daily newsletter.

RBC and Bell bring another mobile payment scheme to Canada

Published

May 9, 2013

The Great White North is getting another mobile payment scheme, a partnership between the country's largest bank and its largest carrier. RBC and Bell announced they will be launching an NFC-based mobile payment product later this year for RBC mobile banking customers who carry Bell Mobility smartphones.

"RBC is excited to team up with Bell to provide our mutual clients with an integrated mobile solution for debit and credit payments," said Dave McKay, group head of personal and commercial banking at RBC Royal Bank. "This is the first piece of a broad RBC mobile commerce solution rolling out to clients this year, all delivering the great, robust user experience and the security that RBC is known for."

RBC said the solution will be part of its existing mobile banking app and will simply appear as an option on the customer's home screen. Along with merchant payments, the new product will also feature peer-to-peer payments for sending and receiving funds to any person or business in Canada, the partners said.

Eligible phones will include the BlackBerry Z10, Q10, Bold 9900, Bold 9790 or Curve 9360, and NFC-enabled phones from Samsung, Sony, HTC and LG.

"Canada's largest banking institution and Canada's largest communications company are working closely together to ensure reliability, security and ease of use in mobile commerce," said Wade Oosterman, president of mobility and residential services, and chief brand officer at Bell. "With RBC and Bell, mobile commerce just got better."

The new mobile product will use NFC SIM cards installed in phones in order to secure and store payment data from RBC credit and debit accounts. Bell said it will eventually make NFC SIM cards available for all NFC-capable devices.

This is the second NFC mobile payment product on the Canadian market. Earlier this year, CIBC and Rogers Communications began offering their customers a mobile wallet for Blackberry devices. An Android version of that app for Samsung Galaxy S3 devices was made available earlier this week.

Read more about contactless/NFC payments.