French bank and carrier team up to bring mobile payments to market

The new BNP Paribas Mobile service combines a mobile network subscription, a range of innovative mobile banking products plus a choice of phones — including three with NFC — and is being promoted to customers via the bank's network of branches across France.

KIX: NFC payments from BNP Paribas

French banking group BNP Paribas has launched BNP Paribas Mobile, a suite of mobile banking and payments services.

BNP Paribas Mobile is the result of a strategic partnership set up in Julybetween the banking group and mobile network operator Orange. The new service includes:

• Four mobile service subscription packages and a choice of eight smartphones, including three Cityzi NFC handsets — the Acer Liquid Express, BlackBerry Curve 9360 and Samsung Galaxy S2.
• A comprehensive mobile banking service for managing and viewing accounts that includes twelve applications for managing day-to-day banking from customers' mobile phones. The apps include My Accounts, which allows users to monitor their account activity, My Balance and My Safe, a secure way to store essential documents.
• My Transfers, a person-to-person remote mobile payments services that lets users send money to anyone from their mobile phone free of charge, even if the other person is not a BNP Paribas customer.
• NFC payments, if the customer has opted for an NFC phone. The BNP Paribas KIX application works with the French Cityzi NFC service now live in Nice and Strasbourg and being rolled out to the cities of Marseille, Caen, Lille and Bordeaux as well as other parts of France in 2012.

All BNP Paribas customers are eligible to subscribe to the new service, and can sign up at any of the bank's 2,250 branches in France, via its online virtual branch La Net Agence, or via the BNP Paribas customer relations centre.

BNP Paribas Mobile customers will also be able to go to the Orange France website to request a 30-minute phone meeting with one of the operator's experts to help them learn more about their smartphone. Orange customers can also use the network's '700' customer service hotline for any question they may have about the service or about using their mobile.

The development of the new service "attests to the strong desire of both companies to take a strong lead in mobile banking and develop a broad range of innovative features such as contactless mobile services," say the partners. "Both groups want to support their customers in using the new services, by combining their experience in their own particular fields of excellence, namely, banking services for BNP Paribas and mobile telephony for Orange."

"BNP Paribas is determined to support this rollout by giving NFC payment terminals to its retail clients as well as to all its private customers who have Cityzi enabled mobiles," the company adds.