A year ago, on November 14, a contact payment service started operating in the Czech Republic, which made it easier to send money between people. To send money from a bank account, instead of the recipient’s account number in internet or mobile banking, all you need to know is his phone number, which is registered with one of the participating banks.
Clients must actively log in to the service and pair their phone number with their bank account. Payment to the contact can only be entered in crowns and the minimum amount is one crown, the maximum is 5,000 crowns.
Half a year after its launch, over half a million bank clients were activated in the system. In the first days from mid-November 2023, almost a quarter of a million clients of Air Bank, České spořitelna, ČSOB, Fio banka, Komerční banka and Raiffeisenbank signed up for the service. This May, Moneta Money Bank got involved.
People have to actively sign up for the service through their bank. The numbers are registered with the Czech National Bank (ČNB). In the CNB register, it is possible to store multiple telephone numbers for one account number, for example in the case of a joint account of spouses. Conversely, multiple account numbers cannot be assigned to one phone number. Phone numbers not included in the CNB register will not be able to accept payment per contact. So the money will not leave the account.
To send money, people select a counterparty from their phone book, in which they can see if the counterparty is involved in the service and whether it is possible to carry out the transaction using pay-to-contact. Another advantage is that before sending money, the name of the recipient’s account is displayed, usually first and last name.
Source: www.tyden.cz
