Mobile Payments Key to Adding Value, Says CaixaBank

With mobile payments proving increasingly popular, it’s not surprising that a lot of users are turning to these systems in order to carry out everyday payment options.

Meanwhile, businesses are discovering the value in providing these systems, as discovered by everyone from retail stores to device makers. Banks, meanwhile, have often come up last, and CaixaBank is getting behind mobile payments in a big way.

CaixaBank, by way of its payments division’s head of mobile Matteo Fermi, notes that mobile payments are the best example of using technology to provide added value, a point that more than a few likely wouldn’t have seen coming. CaixaBank expects mobile payments to provide several benefits for the customer, and by extension, the issuing company.

Benefits include not only improved customer satisfaction, but also improved loyalty—who leaves a place they’re happy with?—improved reputation with the community, and even better revenue as more customers stick around long-term and new customers join the fold.

Fermi noted “We designed CaixaBank Pay with the scope of adding valuable features and giving the user power to manage all the new payments options coming into the market, with all the financial services they need. The lesson we can share is to be ready for everything and always listen to users and their needs—mobile payments are here to last and, in the near future, can change our life.”

It’s one of those lessons that’s really only obvious in hindsight. We’ve seen how Starbucks is blowing away a lot of competition by offering a mobile app that incorporates payment options, as well as offering mobile ordering functions.

We’ve seen Samsung and Apple make hay while the mobile payments sun shined, with positive outcomes all around. That CaixaBank realizes now that people want a great mobile payments experience is good news; better had it realized this six months ago, or even a couple years back, but now it can at least play in the right sandbox.

Better late than never, essentially; this is likely to be a lesson that more banks will be learning over the next few years. Sooner the better, really…there are too many potential customers waiting to readily pass up.