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Mexican bank Banamex is beginning a rollout of contactless payment and plans to have 12,000 contactless terminals and about 1 million debit and credit cards deployed by the end of the year in and around Mexico City, according to MasterCard Worldwide and point-of-sale terminal vendor VeriFone.

The bank, reportedly Mexico’s second largest in terms of assets and a part of Citigroup, is initially rolling out terminals to 2,000 merchants and issuing 100,000 contactless credit and debit cards, according to VeriFone, which is supplying the terminals.  

The cards would enable customers to quickly pay for purchases of up to 250 pesos (US$19), without requiring a signature. The cards and terminals will support MasterCard's PayPass contactless technology, said MasterCard. It's not clear whether the terminals will also support Visa payWave.

By the end of 2012, Banamex expects to have replaced the existing terminals in nearly 66% of its Mexico City installed customer base with the 12,000 contactless terminals, VeriFone's Alejandro Chirife said in a blog post.

Banamex has already delved into the contactless market. About six years ago, it deployed VeriFone terminals to accept MasterCard PayPass contactless cards at all McDonald's restaurants in Monterrey.