ING and KBC team up for mobile payments in Belgium
Rik Vandenberghe, CEO ING Belgium
ING and Belgian bank KBC have joined forces to launch a new, integrated mobile payments and loyalty platform in Belgium.
This will combine ING’s payment app Payconiq with loyalty platforms Qustomer and KBC’s CityLife.
Rik Vandenberghe, CEO ING Belgium, says the customer feedback it received about Payconiq and Qustomer “strengthens our conviction that as a bank we constantly have to innovate”.
He adds: “And as far as innovation is concerned, we strongly believe in the power of co-operation.”
Daniel Falque, CEO of KBC Belgium, says the importance of mobile payments is “increasing exponentially”, both online and in shops.
Last year, ING developed payment app Payconiq and also bought loyalty platform Qustomer, while KBC worked with CityLife, a loyalty platform that enables buyers to “save for a personal goal or a good cause”. KBC also launched its own mobile payment solution in the CityLife platform.
With Payconiq, customers can make payments online and transfer money to friends and family, “regardless of their bank”.
All this has now been merged into one integrated solution for consumers and retailers, which ING says has resulted in a platform that is already used by over a million Qustomer, CityLife and Payconiq consumers and 6,500 retailers. Both banks expect to expand this network over the coming months.
Later this year, CityLife and Qustomer will introduce a new loyalty platform with the name, Payconiq.
Qustomer and CityLife are integrated in the Payconiq app, while the CityLife app now also offers Payconiq as a payment option.
ING says that currently three out of four Belgian consumers have a smart phone, while more than 1.1 million KBC and ING clients use mobile banking.
