The second-largest retailer in the world, Carrefour, has contracted Gemalto to develop a mobile payment solution for its own payment card.
The contract came by way of Carrefour’s banking arm, Market Pay, and the solution comes via Gemalto’s Allynis Trusted Service Hub (TSH), which provides the back end for card provisioning and management. The solution is designed to let Carrefour customers load their cards onto Android devices to enable NFC-based mPayments at Carrefour outlets. The system incorporates both Carrefour banking cards and loyalty cards, with the later being updated instantly at the POS.
An official launch date hasn’t yet been announced, but the system has already been trialed in live shops, and Carrefour’s management appears keen to put it into action. In a statement announcing the development, Market Pay CEO Frédéric Mazurier explained that “Carrefour is committed to a strategy that marries the physical and digital domains, placing the smartphone at the very heart of our customer offer”, adding that mPayments “are a key element of this approach”.
Carrefour joins other major retailers like Walmart in seeking to promote its own mPayment solution as opposed to simply embracing major platforms like Apple Pay and Android Pay—though Carrefour Banque has also offered Apple Pay support. It’s an indication of the diverse and expanding ecosystem of mPayments as the concept continues to take off.
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