● BT, the only bank in Romania to offer contactless payments by phone ●

Update at 12:00: Almost 1,000 downloads of the BT Pay app in about an hour.

Banca Transilvania is launching BT Pay, a wallet app for shopping and sending money with a phone. The phone becomes a digital wallet, reshaping the shopping experience for BT customers who hold Visa or MasterCard debit or credit cards, as well as the way they send money. The app can be downloaded from Google Play Store or the App Store on Android and iOS smartphones and allows cards to be added in digital form.

The launch marks two firsts: BT Pay is the first wallet in Romania to enable contactless payments, built on smart payment technology from Visa Token Service and MasterCard Digital Enablement Service; it is also the first digital wallet in Southeast Europe to use Visa’s token service.

BT Pay stands for the collection of payment accessories Banca Transilvania has launched so far — the contactless sticker, watch and bracelet — and, as of today, the wallet app as well.

With BT Pay, BT customers can:

• Make payments in Romania and abroad by holding the smartphone near merchants’ contactless terminals; this functionality is available for smartphones running Android, as iOS does not allow third-party apps to access NFC (Near Field Communication).
• Transfer money between their own cards and to other people who have a BT card.
• View details of transactions made with the BT card, the balance and, for credit cards, the monthly amounts due and the Star loyalty points accrued.
• Access the bank’s offers and campaigns run by BT partners in the Star programme, dedicated to those who have shopping cards from Banca Transilvania.  

Banca Transilvania’s partners in developing BT Pay are: Visa; Mastercard; Endava, a UK IT services and solutions company with a strong presence in Romania; and Inside Secure, a global leader in mobile device security.

Statements:

• Banca Transilvania: Ömer Tetik, Chief Executive Officer:

“With BT Pay we want to offer customers new experiences when they shop, when they want to send money or when they check transactions made with the BT card. Our customers’ appetite for contactless shopping keeps growing, with an increase of over 350% in December 2017 compared with December 2016. Also, every second there are 5 transactions made using one of the 20 cards in our range. The launch of BT Pay is a big step forward for the bank in providing customers with digital services.”

• Visa: Cătălin Crețu, General Manager for Romania, Croatia, Malta and Slovenia:

“We are honoured to launch, together with Banca Transilvania, the first digital wallet in Southeast Europe that uses Visa’s tokenisation service. It is a significant step forward in the long-standing partnership we have developed with BT, given that over 2 million holders of Visa cards issued by Banca Transilvania will be able to use their mobile phones for fast and secure payments at millions of merchants worldwide that accept contactless transactions. Since contactless technology has been enthusiastically embraced by Romanians in recent years, we are confident that the digital wallet launched today will become a success in a short time.” 

• MasterCard:Cosmin Vladimirescu, General Manager Mastercard:

“We are pleased that, together with our partners at Banca Transilvania, we have managed to launch yet another project that contributes to the development of the electronic payments segment. It is all the more gratifying as it comes exactly 10 years after Mastercard’s pioneering launch of contactless payments, a payment option that has grown spectacularly. Mastercard will continue to be consistently and actively involved in ensuring access to simple, fast and secure payments, and the first wallet to enable contactless payments is an important milestone in bringing these efforts to fruition,” said Cosmin Vladimirescu, General Manager Mastercard.

Banca Transilvania is the leader of the Romanian card market, with over 3 million cards in its portfolio and a market share of over 20% by card transaction volumes.

MULTIMEDIA FILES

	BT Pay logo Download		BT Pay visual Download		BT Pay video Watch