First Investment Bank AD has launched the first mobile HCE payment card scheme in Bulgaria based on MasterCard Cloud Based Payments. This launch is done with certified MasterCard partners, MeaWallet together with ABnote, SimplyTap and Tieto. This will enable bank customers to use smartphones for in-store payments.

First Investment Bank AD (Fibank) of Bulgaria is a first bank in the region launching a MasterCard Cloud Based Payments mobile card product and thus brings an innovation to their existing mobile bank users. The innovative mobile payment service is based on Host Card Emulation (HCE) technology certified by MasterCard.

“Fibank is glad to offer a novice product to its customers. Fibank’s mobile app customers using an NFC enabled Android handset can choose to add the digital card within the Fibank’s mobile app and perform a contactless payment in-store by tapping the NFC-enabled POS-terminal to complete the payment, simple and secure” says Svetoslav Moldovansky, Executive Director at Fibank.

“We are proud to be a part of this innovative product launch, supporting Fibank in setting a new trend in the Balkan region,” says Lars Sandtorv, CEO of MeaWallet. “We also we want to thank our partners ABnote™, SimplyTapp and Tieto for their contribution with technology, integration and efforts to secure this success”.

” Doug Yeager, CEO of SimplyTapp clearly states that:  “We are thrilled to provide our cloud based payment product in this launch.  It’s been a pleasure working with all the integrators involved in the release”.

, “From a partner perspective, we have global visibility on many wallet solutions  and can attest that MeaWallet’s implementation for Fibank is among the best in terms of product integration, performance and customer support”, says John Ekers, CIO of ABnote

“In todays’ fast growing mobile commerce environment cloud-based payments are a highly demanded solution. This project again demonstrates that Fibank is among the leaders of innovative banking. We are delighted to support Fibank in this journey,” says Maris Ozolins, Director of Cards, Tieto.

This is one of the first commercial HCE NFC banking projects in Europe. The first phase supports the MasterCard payment scheme and the next phase will support the scheme from VISA Cloud Based Payments. The mobile bank users are able to use the service globally at all EMV contactless compliant POS terminals covering millions of merchants.