Finnish telco hawks pre-loaded contactless payments stickers

Finnish telco Elisa has teamed up with convenience store chain R-kioski to sell pre-loaded contactless payments stickers.

Finns who are at least 15 and have a social security number and mobile phone number, can buy the stickers loaded with EUR20 in-store and activate them via text message.

The Elisa Lompakko stickers can then be attached to devices such as mobile phones and used to make purchases by placing them near contactless payment readers.

R-kioski, which has 640 stores in Finland, has also now equipped its outlets with contactless readers so that it can begin accepting tap and pay payments.

Channels

Retail banking Payments

Keywords

Mobile & online banking Eftpos

Comments: (3)

A Finextra member 04 April, 2014, 14:14

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Did somebody pick up a press release file from the wrong folder?.. (labelled "2004" or something)

Unless those stickers are reloadable and we are talking about "digital cash"... Even then, one would expect from a nation that at some point ruled the mobile world to have such a functionality in every smartphone by now...

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A Finextra member 05 April, 2014, 00:06

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How Dumb is this ! It has to be said. And Alexander is being way too polite.

Apart from agreeing with the above comment, this is screaming transaction fraud. Steal the Sticker and go shopping with someone elses money. Great...

Seems that anyone with some backing is having a shot at mobile payments often without any real tangible offering.

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A Finextra member 07 April, 2014, 04:58

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Brilliant concept, the telco and the chain lock in repeat customers, the money is preloaded, there is minimal risk, if you can activate the account with an sms, you can equally alert the Telco that your phone is lost or stolen and cancel any further transactions. The reload can be controlled after all what would you do if you lost your wallet with cash/cards? The Telco benefits in providing added features to their “client experience” the chain gets more foot traffic to their store everyone wins….and the “Scheme” well they are left out of this environment altogether. Transactions are a changing….just watch this space!