BBVA has updated its mobile banking app to include more security control options by allowing users to manage their card usage. Users can now control spending on their cards and tailor each one to different functions.
This is useful if users want different cards to have different purposes. For example, one card can be limited to online commerce purchases only; another can be used solely for ATM cash withdrawals.
The Spanish bank has also introduced a feature that has only become possible with the introduction of mobile banking – the option of locking, temporarily blocking, and unlocking the card as the user chooses. Such a service has already been introduced by Canadian banks, and seems a natural progression in terms of security.
“The new version of BBVA Wallet turns our customers’ smartphones into a remote control to do whatever they want with each one of their cards,” says Mehmet Sezgin, head of Global Payments Systems at BBVA.
The wallet app has been popular in Spain, having been downloaded over half a million times. The bank is also eyeing international expansion: the app has already been released in Chile and soon will be rolled out in the US and Mexico.
“These functions usher in a new era for payment systems. Personalising cards up to now never meant more than choosing a photo to decorate them, but now BBVA’s customers have the ability to set up their own cards, cancel them and modify each one to meet their needs and circumstances,” underscores Sezgin.
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