Building on its growing momentum in contactless payments, Bank of Montreal is rolling out the Mobile PayPass Tag, a Near Field Communication-enabled sticker that consumers can attach to their mobile phones to make contactless payments in Canada, the bank announced Sept. 13.
BMO is marketing the product first to its customers who already use MasterCard Worldwide PayPass contactless credit cards, mobile banking and online banking, David Heatherly, vice president of payment products, tells PaymentsSource.
The bank is sending 160,000 customers who use those services promotional email messages touting the new payment option, while 200,000 more will receive direct mail pieces, Heatherly says. BMO also purchased some digital advertising space at university and college campuses, as students are big smartphone users, a spokesperson told PaymentsSource in an email.
The tag and the email services are free to BMO customers, the bank said in a press release. Customers may call a toll-free number to receive their stickers via mail.
PayPass technology already is embedded in more than 7 million of BMO’s MasterCard credit cards, the bank said in a press release. PayPass enables customers to conduct transactions under $50 by passing their card in close proximity to a contactless NFC card reader, increasing speed and convenience, MasterCard says.
The new PayPass Tag program also incorporates MasterCard’s inControl platform, enabling participants to receive emails confirming transactions in order to track their spending, says Heatherly.
BMO sees the so-called “bridge” technology as a way to hold consumers over until NFC-enabled mobile phones are more widely available, Heatherly says. He notes that 200 employees of BMO and other companies involved with the pilot in Canada tested the Mobile PayPass Tag 18 months ago and found it to be “incredibly fast and convenient” for conducting transactions. He expects NFC phones to be available starting in 2012.
Experts say Canada is a hotbed of activity for contactless partly because MasterCard emphasized the technology there when the country began its shift to EMV chip card technology several years ago.
“Canada is the number one country in the world for PayPass usage, so it’s completely logical that the success of the issuers who have seen results in their contactless card portfolios would start the process of moving to phones,” says Todd Ablowitz, president of mobile payment consulting firm Double Diamond Group. Ablowitz, a former senior executive of Vivotech Inc., tells PaymentsSource he devoted time to helping develop the Canadian market for contactless and mobile payments.
MasterCard Canada says 18,000 merchant locations deploying about 100,000 terminals accept contactless payments.
Major Canadian retail chains, such Tim Horton coffee shops and, as of July, all 1,400 McDonald’s restaurants accept PayPass (
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