In the first phase of a European roll-out, Mastercard and Xiaomi have
announced the launch of Mi Smart Band 4 NFC in Russia. Based on NXP’s
mWallet 2GO cloud-based mobile platform, the band incorporates Xiaomi‘s
signature mobile wallet service, bringing convenient and secure contactless
payment to a new continent at a very low price point.
Worldwide Impact of COVID-19 Leads to an Increase in Contact-Free Transactions
COVID-19 made an immediate impact on our lives and will have a lasting effect
on the way we spend, according to a report by
Mastercard SpendingPulse™. They surveyed respondents in Australia, Brazil, Colombia, China, France,
Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain, Russia, UAE, U.S. and UK, asking
“what changes are here to stay?” Significantly, 69% of those
surveyed answered “more contactless payments” would probably be
one of the changes they expected to live with going forward with 60% saying
“using less cash.”
Russia Benefits First
Russia is the biggest market for mobile payment in Europe. Recent research
from Media scope
showed that more than 90% of Russians use electronic payments, around 90% with
bank cards and online banking. Electronic payments cover a wide range,
particularly for online shopping and mobile services including utility and
housing services, as well as a growing use of e-payments for taxis. Around 78%
of people use e-wallets, with 45% using contactless payments. The launch of
the Mi Smart Band 4 NFC means that customers of ten major Russian banks will
be first to benefit, especially relevant in the light of COVID-19.
Secure Enablement by Mastercard and NXP
The Mi Smart Band 4 works exclusively with Mastercard, leveraging their core
digital platform for an added layer of security. Mastercard’s platform
protects cardholder information by replacing account numbers with a unique
alternate card number, or “token”. Tokenization further reduces
fraud related to digital payments by including a dynamic component with each
payment. The solution is further complemented with a Secure Element.
“Mastercard is focused on ensuring people can pay how they
want—simply and securely. We continue to drive innovation in
payments and contactless technology enables payments to be seamless
and secure. Our successful collaboration with NXP and Xiaomi is a
testament to Mastercard being the partner of choice for innovative
technology that helps people everywhere, every day.” Caroline
Casey, Vice President, Innovation, Partnerships and Labs at Mastercard
Europe
At the heart of the Mi Smart Band 4 NFC, mWallet 2GO is NXP’s
cloud-based mobile wallet platform, the result of NXP’s vision of
combining services and hardware into one unique offering. NXP is the first in
the industry to offer the full scope of mobile wallet development with mWallet
2GO. From the early idea of a cloud service platform, we developed a way to
deploy NFC services on IoT devices, with customers including Garmin and Fitbit
benefiting from our Secure Element Management Service (SEMS) in Garmin Pay and
Fitbit Pay. NXP collaborates with
Mobile Knowledge
to provide design support—from hardware, software and end-to-end
service integration to the commercial launch with highly integrated
tokenization platforms.
Extended Reach
This is the first time a Chinese device OEM has launched an NFC-based service
with a major payment provider like Mastercard outside of China. With
NXP’s mWallet 2GO mobile payment solutions integrated into the 22 g
fitness tracker, users can quickly and easily add their bank cards to their
wallet app on Android or iOS mobile devices. From there, it’s a
hands-free world of easy and secure payment for travel, services or point of
sales.
Learn more about NXP’s mWallet 2GO solution.