Payment|The EU tightened its grip on Apple, and as a result, the popular payment service’s usage methods are expanding on phones.
Tax application Mobilepay can soon be used for contactless payments.
It means that instead of a card, you can hold your phone next to the payment terminal, with the app that handles the payment.
This can already be done with Apple’s and Google’s own solutions, to which a payment card has been added, but Mobilepay will now be an option alongside them.
Function was implemented today, Monday, in Norway, and it will be available to Finnish Mobilepay users during the next year.
In Norway, the work starts first with Apple’s Iphone phones. EU regulation obliges Apple to open their functions to the competition, which enables Mobilepay’s new feature to be realized now.
“We have been struggling for years to be able to compete on an equal footing with Apple, and it seems almost unreal that we can finally release our own solution,” says the CEO of Vipps Mobilepay in the press release Rune Garborg.
The company’s name comes from the merger of two mobile companies, Norwegian Vipps and Danish Mobilepay.
In Finland, the company is known by the latter name. Here it is is used sothat the phone number of the recipient of the money must be known or the QR code is read in the payment situation.
The company is bracing for the fact that, according to its words, it is the first operator to offer an alternative to the official Apple Pay.
“This shows our ability to compete with global gamblers,” says Garborg.
The program can be set as the default payment method on the iPhone, that is, it does not need to be opened separately at the time of payment. In Norway, about 70 percent of the bank’s customers can access the function, and the company says it is expanding the repertoire.
Yet it is not known what the Finnish banks and retail chains think about the matter.
With Mobilepay, you could previously pay wirelessly in S and K stores using a bluetooth connection, but this service was discontinued at the end of last year.
According to Mobilepay, it has 2.8 million users in Finland.