All three payment methods are available countrywide and can also be used to make withdrawals at the first NFC enabled Erste Bank ATM in Vienna.
NFC armband or the NFC capable sticker enable payments via a Maestro transaction directly from the users’s bank account. PIN codes and limits are the same for both products as for customer’s existing ATM card and he or she can use them for payments worldwide. Regarding payment size, no code is needed for payments of less than EUR 25 but, from EUR 25 upward, a PIN code has to be entered. The same security criteria that apply to traditional ATM cards also apply to these solutions.
Fees for the sticker and the armband are reduced until year-end 2018 and amount to half of the cost of a normal ATM card. Currently, the fee is 0.97 cents per month. Armband and sticker can be purchased with immediate effect. The new NFC products can also be ordered at branch offices. Both products are available Austria-wide.
A mobile app for payment with one’s smartphone is available from the Sparkassen Group as well. This requires an NFC-capable smartphone with Android software and an existing contract with A1, Drei or T-Mobile. For this purpose, the user has to order an NFC-capable SIM card from one’s service provider. Thereafter, he or she downloads the BankCardMobil app from the Google Play Store and within one hour, the customer’s smartphone is transformed into a wallet.
As of the end of April 2016, customers of Erste Bank und Sparkassen had performed 7.7m contactless transactions totalling EUR 164mln, according to the bank.
Every day we send out a free e-mail with the most important headlines of the last 24 hours.
Subscribe now