Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce doesnt plan to be wed to any one mobile payments system, Chief Executive Officer Victor Dodig said.
They key for us is, if the technology is secure, it doesnt jeopardize the payments ecosystem, it doesnt jeopardize our clients, well look at it, Dodig said Tuesday in an interview in Toronto. If it makes economic sense, business sense, well do it.
CIBC is working with Canadian wireless carriers Telus Corp., BCE Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc., which are debuting a mobile wallet allowing customers with Android or BlackBerry phones to pay retailers using Suretap technology. Apple Inc.s Apple Pay, which was unveiled in the U.S. in October and will be introduced in the U.K. next month, isnt available yet in Canada, nor is Google Inc.s Android Pay.
I think that over an 18-month period, therell be a field of providers that have technology that clients with various handsets will adopt to, said Dodig, who declined to discuss the state of talks with Apple or Google. No provider is going to shatter the industry one way or another, he said.
Eight major U.K. banks including Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Lloyds Banking Group Plc have signed up for Apple Pay, which allows users to make purchases from their smartphones or tablets, Cupertino, California-based Apple said Monday in a statement.
In the end, therell be more than just Apple Pay, therell be others with their own payment mechanisms, said Dodig, who earlier Tuesday spoke at a technology and banking event hosted by the Empire Club of Canada. And therell be competition there, too.
Dodig anticipates the emergence of more mobile payments systems will ultimately lead to fragmentation in Canada, leaving winners and losers.
We want to make sure that we retain the bulk of our clients deposits and investments and were relevant to them when it comes to lending, Dodig said. Theyll all choose the wallet that they see as most appropriate for them, but we want CIBC to be their bank.
