NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – As expected, Orange will continue offering its NFC-enabled Orange Cash Visa-branded card with the launch of its Orange Bank mobile service.
The telco, which launched the mobile-only bank Thursday, said it has 500,000 users for the prepaid Orange Cash payments service in France since launching it in 2014 on NFC SIM cards. It later added Orange Cash to the Apple Wallet and Apple Pay in France and that will also continue with Orange Bank. Transactions with Orange Cash are not believed to be high.
“From a technical point of view, it (Orange Cash) works very well; we have just reached 500,000 customers,” Marc Rennard, deputy CEO for customer experience and mobile banking, speaking at the recent Money 20/20 fintech show in Las Vegas. He added, however, that “it's not enough to be viable to continue as standalone, so we include this functionality in our Orange Bank offer.”