One of Canada’s leading banks, the Royal Bank of Canada(RBC) has announced that it is expanding the potential reach of its cloud-basedNFC wallet by opening it to Virgin Mobile subscribers and to customers with aBlackBerry Z10 or Z30 mobile phone
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When the service launched in January 2014, the RBC mobilewallet was isolated to Bell Mobility subscribers with a Samsung Galaxy S III orSamsung Galaxy S4 NFC phone, however in the months since RBC has announced thatcustomers with many of the popular Samsung, Sony or HTC smartphones could usethe wallet along with any MasterCard, Interac or Visa payment card.
Commenting on the latest expansion, Linda Mantia, executivevice-president for cards and payment solutions at RBC said, “With the additionof new mobile devices we are making the RBC Wallet more accessible to ourclients through an additional platform and devices, ensuring that our userswill continue to have the choice and flexibility that they have experienced inour traditional and online banking channels. Our mobile capabilities aregrowing and will continue to evolve to offer our clients with value addedservices, more payment options, on more devices, across more networks.”
The further “opening” up of the RBC mobile wallet iscritical to its success in encouraging consumers to switch from payment carduse to their mobile phone as the main mechanism of facilitating payments. Bycontinuing to expand the mobile wallet eco-system for customers, RBC stands agood chance of gaining significant momentum in the mobile payment space andbecoming a leader in the Canadian marketplace.
Overview by Tristan Hugo-Webb, Associate Director of International Advisory Service for Mercator Advisory Group
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