Gemalto Supports la Caixa First Large Scale Deployment of Contactless EMV Payment in Spain

Gemalto announced that la Caixa, one of Spain’s largest retail banks with more than 10 milllion customers, is deploying Optelio contactless EMV cards for the country’s first large scale deployment of contactless payment. Gemalto is providing full set of personalization and production services at Gemalto’s local facility to support la Caixa’s strategy to roll out one million contactless cards in Barcelona by the end of 2012.

The Gemalto card will enable la Caixa’s customers to experience the speed and convenience of contactless transactions – waving or tapping the card at the reader – for small purchases up to €20, while a PIN code will also be used to authorize higher value transactions. With this new payment service, la Caixa is driving contactless card innovation in Spain and can offer new services to its 10.4 million customers. The solution will also enable the bank to penetrate the cash market and benefit from increased transaction volumes.

la Caixa chose Barcelona to continue its long-term strategy to migrate its entire card portfolio to contactless technology throughout Spain by the end of 2015. To underpin this vision, the bank is simultaneously creating an infrastructure with 15,000 merchants equipped with contactless payment terminals and 500 ATMs featuring built-in contactless readers.

Gemalto has supported la Caixa for the past 20 years. With personalization and production facilities in Barcelona and a highly experienced team, Gemalto has been the choice of la Caixa to ensure the smooth deployment of new payment solutions to their customers. Gemalto as preferred technical partner has provided its reliable and field proven Optelio card range as the perfect fit for this latest deployment.

“With this new deployment, la Caixa is positioning itself at the forefront of innovation,” said Gabrielle Bugat, senior vice president of secure transactions at Gemalto. “They are setting up the contactless ecosystem which will help educate and prepare the market for NFC mobile payment and Gemalto is committed to supporting la Caixa in its long term strategy.”

la Caixa is the leading financial group in Spain, with 26,786 employees, 5,172 branches (the largest network in the Spanish financial system), 7,979 ATMs and a leading position in on-line banking through Línea Abierta (with 7.1 million customers), mobile phone banking (more than 2.5 million customers, the highest number of financial service users in Spain) and electronic banking (10.3 million cards in circulation).