NFC TIMES Exclusive – At least two German banks plan to follow the country's largest bank by assets, Deutsche Bank, in offering host card emulation-based mobile payments to their customers, NFC Times has learned.
Deutsche Bank launched its HCE-based service earlier this month, and now its subsidiary, Deutsche Postbank, is preparing a launch, planned for the “near” term, a Postbank spokeswoman confirmed to NFC Times. Another large German bank, DZ Bank, has also confirmed plans for a launch but declined to provide details, with a spokesman telling NFC Times only that “some formal decisions have to be made before starting the project.”
Deutsche Bank integrated its HCE-enabled payments service into its Deutsche Bank Mobile app, targeting Android device users with an NFC-equipped handset. Deutsche Bank said more than 1.5 million users have downloaded the mobile-banking app, but only one-fifth, about 300,000, of those are eligible to use the HCE-service, a Deutsche Bank spokesman confirmed with NFC Times.