FROM LEFT: Commercial Bank officials Abeer Marwa Al Kalla, Head of Corporate Communications and CSR; Amit Sah, EGM and Head of Retail Banking; and Roya Mohammad Khajeh, Assistant General Manager, Head of Cards and Payments, during the media round table he
Doha: In another first, Qatar’s banking industry innovation leader Commercial Bank yesterday formally announced the launch of its e-Wallet (CB Wallet) that allows customers to make payments in just one click, using their mobile phones.
‘The CB Wallet’ is a safe and convenient mode of making payments to service providers. “It’s faster, easier and more secure”, the bank’s top officials said in a media roundtable.
Consumers want to use their smart phones for everything, including payments. And, as a leader of digital payments in Qatar, Commercial Bank had one key payment challenge- how can it deliver a simple, secure & fast payment using the bank's mobile banking application to the customers? CB Wallet was the answer, said Amit Sah, EGM, Head of Retail Banking, Commercial Bank
The country’s first mobile contactless payment wallet, and Commercial Bank’s latest offering will now allow customers to pay with their mobile phones, he said.
When it comes to payment tools, customers look for three main features: Convenience, fast payment and security. The CB wallet provides all the three. Customers can make in-merchant payments by simply tapping their mobile phones, or they can use it for express checkouts during online shopping using “Masterpass.” Moreover, all these payments are taking place without sharing the exact card details with the merchant; a tokenized (encrypted) value is being passed which makes the payment highly secure, he said.
Commercial Bank is aware of the changing ecosystem and is leading the payment revolution in Qatar investing in future technologies to put Qatar among the leading payment ecosystem in the world. As the innovation leader in the industry, Commercial Bank is credited the first bank in the country to launch ‘Contactless Card’, ‘CB Fawri’, ‘First Metal Card’ and the highly-popular “60 Second Remittances”.
As digital payment ecosystem expands, consumers not only want simplicity and speed, but expect security assurance. Commercial Bank is leveraging innovation to bring value to customers by tailoring its products by focusing on the three key pillars-conveniences, speed and security, said Roya Mohammad Khajeh, Assistant General Manager-, Head of Cards and Payment, Commercial Bank, in her presentation.
“Driven by high-speed technology, people are always on the go. Convenience is key and security is a must”, Roya said.
With 40+ years of commercial banking experience, 30+ years of expertise in Cash and Cards payments, Commercial Bank has always been a firm supporter of a ‘Cashless-Society’, which forms part of the main development pillars of Qatar’s ambitious Vision 2030, she said. Elaborating on the features and benefits of the CB Wallet, Roya said the customers can “Tap and Pay” as they go. “all you have to do is to just load all your information one time on the wallet.. No need to carry the cards. The transactions are faster and secure”.
‘Card Tokenization’ is the key feature of CB Wallet in terms of secure payment. It is ‘hacker-free’ and first time to be introduced in Qatar. Card Tokenization is a the process of protecting sensitive data by replacing it with secure surrogate data called token that serves as the reference as a reference to the card. “Even if some potential hackers come in that space, the transaction will be safe and secure,” Roya said.
FIFA 2022: Commercial Bank projects 50% to 100% jump in digital payment
Commercial Bank is expecting a substantial increase in the digital payment in the country in the run up to FIFA 2022. Amit Sah, EGM, Head of Retail Banking, Commercial bank told The Peninsula the bank is expecting a 50 percent to 100 percent surge in digital payment during the FIFA year.
“With Qatar expecting nearly three million people during the event, we are expecting a five to ten million transaction volume per day. In the normal course, an estimated one million transactions are happening per day. We expect a 50 to 100 percent increase in the transaction volume during FIFA 2022”, he said.
Digital is really moving so quick and fast. The numbers are changing every day, said Roya Mohammad Khajeh, Assistant General Manaqger- Head of Cards and Payments.
“When we launched the contactless card, we started with 1000 odd numbers and we reached 50,000. Now we are having five million transactions. Digital adoption is taking so fast. During FIFA 2022, if all the 3 million or 3.5 million people are coming to Qatar, we are certainly going to see a tremendous surge in the transaction volume’, she said.
