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.
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 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.
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.
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.
Gregor Klezin is Director for Global Mobile Payment Solutions at NXP. He brings more than 13 years of experience in mobile payments, digital wallets, semiconductors and contactless technologies. He is strongly focused on building global alliances within the mobile payment ecosystem by working closely with the payment networks, device manufacturers, solution providers and banks.
