RBC's mobile phone payment service lets Canadians send and receive money right from their cell phones

In this age of fast-emerging payment technologies, RBC Royal Bank is testing a new service, RBC Mobex Mobile Payment Service, which allows users to easily and securely send and receive money instantly using a text message on their mobile phone.

The service is designed for person-to-person payments in situations where individuals may not have the cash on hand, such as reimbursing a friend for lunch, collecting for the office coffee run, paying the babysitter, or buying a garage sale item.

“Increasingly, consumers are using their mobile phones to help simplify their day-to-day lives, including banking and payment transactions,” said Anne Koski, head, RBC Payments Innovation. “We’re testing this mobile phone service to find out if consumers are eager to instantly send and get cash when it’s needed most, in an easy but secure manner.”

Participants in the trial are able to use the RBC Mobex payment service on their existing mobile phone, providing it has SMS – text messaging capability. Users simply send a text message to RBC Mobex with the dollar amount and the recipient’s cell phone number. Funds are then taken from the sender’s Mobex account and moved to the recipient’s Mobex account. The recipient also receives an instant text message on their cell phone to let them know when the money has been sent to them.

Amounts of up to $100 per day can be sent to anyone with a mobile phone serviced by any Canadian wireless carrier, even if they do not have an RBC Mobex account. Recipients just need to register for the payment service to access their funds. The RBC Mobex account is a stored value account and enrollment is through the RBC Mobex web-site, where money can be loaded from any bank account with any financial institution in Canada, or by using a credit card.

For added security, senders receive a call on their mobile phone to verify the transaction with a PIN for amounts over $25. Participants will be able to remotely track and manage their RBC Mobex account directly from their mobile phone or through the RBC Mobex web site to check balances, view payment history, and add funds. There are no additional fees to use the service, however users are subject to any regular bank or wireless carrier charges and fees they might have in place.

“Although our new payment service is used on a cell phone, it utilizes the same highly secure payment systems that Canadians have come to trust from their banks”, added Koski. “With more consumers clamoring for services that fit their fast paced lifestyles, RBC continues to create secure solutions that meet our clients ‘anywhere, anytime’ financial needs.”

Starting with RBC employees, their family and their friends in Canada, the trial will run until January 2009. Further details about a wide scale consumer pilot are to be confirmed and announced at a later time.

Driving Innovative Mobile Solutions in Canada

The mobile phone payment trial represents one more addition to RBC’s mobile solutions suite which already includes a web and mobile banking service designed specifically for mobile devices. Through www.rbc.mobi, online banking users not only have convenient and secure access to their RBC accounts, the navigation has been streamlined to make it easy to pay bills, check balances and transfer funds from just about anywhere over Internet-enabled mobile phones or PDAs.

RBC is also lab testing the use of cell phones rather than traditional credit cards for making Visa card purchases at merchant locations. Mobile phone devices are embedded with Near Field Communication (NFC) contactless chips that ensure users a fast and convenient way to pay for small purchases by simply waving their mobile phone at Visa payWave checkout readers.

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