Orange has entered the mobile payments market by launching Orange Cash, a mobile wallet app powered by the Wirecard group, across France.
Nationwide launch
After a launch in six selected French cities, the mobile payment service is now promoted and marketed by Orange to its French user base. More than 30,000 retailers including furniture retailer IKEA are participating in the launch phase to support the new mobile payment service in France.
2.8m European acceptance points
Orange Cash customers who have NFC-enabled smartphones will be able to pay at any contactless Visa terminal in more than 324,000 stores across the country with just a tap. The service is also available in other countries with 2.8 million acceptance points throughout Europe. The service has already had a successful launch in Spain last quarter.
“We’ve launched in six pioneer cities, taking time to pilot and use the learnings in order to launch nationwide an application that will lead the development of mobile payments in France. This is why we have now decided to launch throughout the whole country,” said Thierry Millet, SVP Mobile Financial and NFC Services at Orange.
He added that Wirecard was on hand to provide an all-in-one concept from the technical expertise, payment processing up to integrated valued-added services.
Loyalty schemes
Orange Cash combines contactless mobile payments with real-time loyalty and couponing deals from participating retailers through Wirecard’s Card-Linked Offers platform.
The application is based on a prepaid account with a digital Visa card, issued by Wirecard. The cards are provisioned over-the-air onto NFC-SIM cards and managed through a TSM integration of Wirecard’s platform with the Orange network. Wirecard is using Trusted Service Manager (TSM) technology from Oberthur Technologies.
“From our sign-up process to top-up, the complete user journey is smooth and fast. This is what makes Orange Cash successful,” said Christian von Hammel-Bonten, executive vice president of Telecommunications at Wirecard.
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