Rogers And CIBC Team Up To Let You Pay With Your Smartphone…. If You Have The Right Phone

An announcement today came from banking giant CIBC and telco giant Rogers announced that they are teaming up to allow smartphone users to use their smartphones to pay for the stuff that you need:

CIBC and Rogers Communications today announced an agreement to launch Canada’s first joint mobile payment solution, allowing Canadians to pay with their CIBC credit card at the checkout counter using their Rogers “Near Field Communications” (NFC) enabled smartphone. Beginning later this year, customers will be able to use this payment capability at merchants across Canada where contactless credit card payments are accepted.

This announcement represents the first time a bank and a wireless carrier have joined forces to offer a commercially available mobile payments solution to Canadians that leverages the secure SIM card inside an NFC-enabled Rogers smartphone. This new solution aligns to guidelines announced yesterday by the Canadian Bankers Association for mobile payments in Canada, as well as those developed by respected international associations such as the GSM Association (GSMA), the association of mobile operators and related companies dedicated to standardizing and supporting GSM technology.

The key thing to note here is that you have to have a NFC or Near Field Communications chip on your smartphone. Currently not many smartphones have this chip. But ones that do are not far away. Here’s some of the features that you can expect once this service rolls out:

• Full access to a client’s existing CIBC credit cards on their smartphone at no extra cost – whether Visa or MasterCard – this gives clients the opportunity to earn loyalty points on purchases as they do today.
• Multiple layers of security – Paying with your NFC-enabled smartphone will be as secure as using your credit card today. Clients will receive the same fraud protection they do with their contactless credit card, and secure encryption technology will add to the layers of security already in place on credit card purchases. Clients will also have the option to set additional password protection.
• No “stickers” on your phone – this new payment capability will leverage the secure SIM card inside a mobile device for payments, meaning clients can manage their credit card credentials on a secure platform, and won’t need to worry about stickers attached to their phone.

Sounds sweet. I’d like to see what this looks like when it rolls out in Canada. It’s available now in other places in the world. If you’ve used a service like this elsewhere, please post a comment and share your experience.

 

CIBC Customer Service = #Fail

I got a voice mail yesterday from the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (or CIBC as they go by these days) saying that my debit card has been restricted in terms of how I could use it because of suspicious activity. I checked my accounts on line and found no such activity. That was a relief as I have previously had my card compromised and the scumbags went on a spending spree after cloning my card. Not cool at all. So I called them and got a CIBC call center in the province of Saskatchewan. Initially, the individual was helpful and advised me that I needed to change the PIN number my debit card. He then walked me through the steps I would need to do in a two hour window to do so at the nearest CIBC ATM. This took about five minutes and I figured that I would be off the phone quickly and I could deal with this and go about my day.

Too bad I was wrong about that.

He then started to ask probing questions about my bank accounts and credit card. This led to him trying to switch the credit card I already have to a “better” one. When I didn’t show any interest in his offer, he became ultra aggressive about trying to get me to listen to his pitch and to take what he was offering. Clearly he was on commission. I eventually had to tell him to call back at another time as that was the only way I could get him off the phone.

Here’s my problem with this. If CIBC wants to have me sign up for for new products and services, I have no problem with that. Simply send an offer in the mail of use some call center to try and get me to sign up. As long as they’re not calling during dinner or something, I have no issue with that. But when I respond to a voice mail about a potential breach of my debit card that you want me to respond to ASAP so that you can protect me from fraud, and you then try to sell me something at that point, then I consider that to be unsavory at best. All this experience did is create a rather negative experience that makes me want to look at TD, BMO, Scotiabank, or RBC for my banking needs. Would those four banks do something like this? I have no idea. But the fact that CIBC does makes me not want to deal with them after 22 years of continued business.

CIBC, your customer service is a #fail. You might want to do something about it if you want to keep my business.