ICICI Bank launches iMobile Pay contactless solution for card owners

ICICI Bank today announced the launch of a contactless payment service through its banking app, iMobile Pay, that enables customers to tap their smartphones to pay at POS (Point of Sale) machines of merchant outlets. The service will benefit the bank's over 1.5 crore debit and credit card customers as they will no longer need to carry their cards for payments at retail stores. Based on the Near Field Communications (NFC) technology, the innovative payment service empowers customers to create digital versions of their physical ICICI Bank debit and credit cards on the iMobile Pay app. Using the digital cards, customers can initiate electronic payments at merchant outlets from NFC enabled Android smartphones by just waving their phone near a contactless POS device.

The facility of ‘Tap to Pay’ through iMobile Pay is now available on Visa cards and it will soon be activated on Mastercard cards too.

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To avail this service, customers need to update the new version of the iMobile Pay app from Google Play Store on their NFC enabled smartphones of OS- Android 6 and above. Customers will have to do a one-time activation through iMobile Pay to start using the ‘Tap to Pay’ service and then make the payment securely and conveniently at retail stores. As per the RBI guidelines, customers can make payments upto ₹5,000 per transaction with just tapping or waving the phone near the POS device. For transactions above Rs. 5,000, customers will have to enter their card PIN along with waving the phone near the POS device.

Follow these steps to avail the service:

1. One time activation:

· Login to iMobile Pay app and click on ‘Tap to Pay’ icon on the login page or ‘Shop’ section.

· Select registered debit and credit cards to make a digital version and then click on ‘I Agree’ to accept the terms & conditions.

· Create virtual cards against each of their ICICI Bank Visa credit and debit cards

2. Making a payment:

· Log in to iMobile Pay app and click on ‘Tap to Pay’ on login page or ‘Shop’ section

· Select a virtual Visa card to make the payment and wave or tap the phone near the NFC enabled POS device

· A message of ‘Payment initiated successfully’ appears on the phone confirming the transaction

“This contactless mobile payment solution offers cashless payments to the bank’s customers using just their smartphones, thereby eliminating the need to carry cash or debit and credit cards. It provides instant, safe and secure payments. Additionally, the solution offers enhanced security as the customer’s card details are not shared during the transaction process and are stored virtually in the bank’s secure cloud server," said Sudipta Roy, Head- Unsecured Assets, ICICI Bank.

“Contactless payments are becoming the go-to way of paying instantly and securely at merchant outlets, today accounting for 1 out of every 2 face-to-face Visa transactions in Asia Pacific,” said T. R. Ramachandran, Group Country Manager, India and South Asia.

“iMobile Pay ‘Tap to Pay’ will accelerate the growth of safe and hygienic contactless payments and contribute towards India’s growing digital economy.” Srinivas Nidugondi, EVP and Chief Growth and Transformation Officer, Comviva.