SIA and Telecom Italia team up for e-payments
TIM, the single brand of Telecom Italia Group, has teamed with SIA (through its subsidiary TSP), to make POS MultiPay terminals operative in over 2,200 stores in its sales network across Italy.
The aim is to extend the methods of e-payment for its offers; and SIA says TIM’s prepaid mobile phone customers will be able, via debit card, to set up direct debits for services and offers on their bank or post office current account.
The MultiPay terminals can activate recurrent payments in a “secure” manner and without the need for the customer’s IBAN code.
Through this initiative, SIA says customers will “benefit” from permanent doubling of gigabits of data and voice calls minutes, alongside the “exists debit” on a credit card.
The good life
There have been several recent developments in Italy’s payments and banking space.
Jiffy – the instant mobile payments service developed by SIA – is coming to Italian stores. The person-to-business (P2B) project is piloted in Milan and Bergamo, allowing customers to pay via app at participating retail outlets authorised by UBI Banca.
SIA says that “other major Italian banks have expressed interest in offering P2B the service by next autumn”. UBI Banca is one of the core bank participants of the Jiffy service, alongside another 12 Italian banks.
Meanwhile, Nets and Istituto Centrale delle Banche Popolari Italiane (ICBPI) joined forces to launch an instant payments solution in Italy. The new offering is set to go live in Q1 next year. It will be based on Nets’ RealTime24/7 platform and will serve the Italian payment service providers (PSPs).
In an opinion piece, Alberto Cuccu, chief product officer at Objectway, looked at the digitisation of private banking in Italy.
