The bank estimates the growing number of mobile payments and becomes one of the first ones to offer all five mobile payment options.
Fifth Third Bancorp, a Cincinnati-based diversified financial services company, joins the few U.S. banks and starts accepting all five major forms of mobile payments. The customers will be able to make credit and debit card payments via Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Mastercard’s MasterPass and the recently added Android Pay and Microsoft Wallet.
.@FifthThird becomes one of the first banks to offer all 5 #mobilewallets including #Masterpass via @KNDUKNDO https://t.co/481v9eKxnp pic.twitter.com/px9EbaASnD
— Mastercard News (@MastercardNews) January 11, 2017
“At a time when more consumers want to make mobile payments, Fifth Third is pleased to be one of the first banks to offer all five mobile payment options,” said Fifth Third Bancorp President and CEO Greg Carmichael. “We are committed to providing secure and convenient ways for our customers to bank when and how they want.”
Fifth Third has observed the growing popularity of mobile payments among its customers in the past few years. The number of mobile payments has increased by 133% since Fifth Third launched Apple Pay in 2015.
Research company eMarketer provides statistics for 2016 – Americans have totally made $27.67 billion in purchases on smartphones. The number is expected to double in 2017.
“Consumers are rapidly adopting mobile payments and we are providing our customers with every option available on the market today,” said Jimm Bell, director of Consumer and Small Business Payments for Fifth Third Bancorp. “We want to make it simple and secure for customers to pay with their phones.”
Security and privacy might be the two primary reasons for such growing popularity of mobile payments coupled with convenience. Each of the five mobile payments providers offers advanced methods of payment security, such as authorizing transactions with a one-time unique dynamic security code or using a virtual account number to represent account information.
This week, one of the above-listed mobile payments services, Samsung Pay, accidentally confirmed the release of Samsung Pay Mini with support for its upcoming voice assistant Bixby via the Korean version of Samsung Pay’s beta website. The information hasn’t been confirmed by Samsung yet as well as the data of launch is unknown.
Samsung’s beta page mentions mini option of the app, which means it is being developed for a forthcoming build. The image found on the site also shows Bixby, the company’s digital voice assistant that is expected to be integrated into Samsung Pay. The feature has not been announced yet and it is unknown what it will entail. Bixby is developed with the use of technology from Viv Labs, a startup that was bought by Samsung a few months ago and whose creators developed Siri voice assistant.
next