Apple Pay available for BNP Paribas Fortis customers: "It's a tidal wave"

Digital

The announcement was expected for some time. It was made this Wednesday, with demo in support: Apple Pay is now available for BNP Paribas Fortis customers. And according to internal sources at the bank, it would be "a tsunami". Enlistments started in a rush. At the transaction level, almost one in two people have already tested the contactless payment with Apple Pay. By the end of the week, it could have several tens of thousands of users, the same result in a few days as Google Pay (launched in March 2017 by BNP Paribas Fortis) in several months.
BNP Paribas Fortis is positioned as the first bank in Belgium to offer this method of payment "Innovative" against competing banks in the expectation (or stuck for a time by agreements between BNP Paribas Fortis and Apple?). At Belfius, in fact, they say "Follow the evolution of the market but no decision is taken so far". KBC says "To be constantly looking for new opportunities" while remembering to propose "Already a whole range of payment options and innovative applications."

BNP Paribas Fortis customers and Hello bank! and Fintro (which are part of the same group) will be able to use their contactless debit card payments and credit MasterCard- at no extra charge – for their daily purchases on their Iphone anywhere in the world where payments without contacts are accepted, says the bank. This means they can add their debit or credit cards to Apple Wallet, the digital wallet built into iOS, the iPhone's operating system. To pay using Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, the customer will have to bring their smartphone closer to the terminal. From a certain amount, confirmation will be required via fingerprint or facial recognition. "It's a very intuitive payment method, very easy to use and very safe"said Michael Anseeuw, general manager of retail banking at BNPP Fortis yesterday. And to announce that, by the end of the year, 50% of BNP Paribas Fortis cards will allow contactless payments.

"Thanks to the built-in Touch ID sensor that allows users to authenticate by fingerprint or by simply clicking on the side button to authenticate in the blink of an eye with Face ID, it is very easy to make online purchases on applications accepting Apple Pay ", underlines the BNPP Fortis press release.

Note that several companies, such as MediaMarkt and Orange, announced yesterday that they allow mobile payment via Apple Pay.