BOV Mobile: pioneering the new way of banking and payments

"We are delighted to become the first Bank in Malta to respond to changing customer preferences and to launch our mobile customer proposition that we are branding BOV Mobile," said BOV's CEO Charles Borg.

Borg announced that BOV Mobile Pay is one of the services that the Bank will be offering through the mobile channel making person to person payments from the mobile phone a really convenient and simple process.

"It will become easier and much simpler to pay someone else using BOV Mobile Pay than to exchange cash or write a cheque," Borg said, underlining that over the coming weeks and months, the Bank will be showcasing its intuitive and easy to use product with a view to creating a large base of mobile banking users that would effectively be creating a new payments ecosystem for Malta.

Borg said that BOV Mobile is a major deliverable in BOV's multi-year, multi-channel banking strategy: "We have embarked on a journey of sustained, trend-setting innovation that will not only re-define the customer experience but will, concurrently, continue to strengthen BOV's position as the financial service brand of choice in the market."

BOV Mobile is available across a wide range of Apple iPhone and Android^T smartphones and tablets and can be accessed both locally and abroad using either 3G or WiFi. The BOV Mobile app is available free for download from the Apple App Store and from Google Play (formerly known as the Android Market).

Victor Denaro, Chief Officer, Information Technology at Bank of Valletta explained that BOV Mobile provides a secure banking and payments experience thanks to the multiple layers of security it employs.

"Bank of Valletta has always been at the forefront of banking technological innovation in Malta and today we are once again raising the bar by layering multiple security features into BOV Mobile whilst ensuring a straightforward customer interface that reduces the transaction authentication mechanism to just one screen and one field," Denaro said.

"We are pleased that we have managed to combine robust security with the convenience and simplicity required by our customers without making any compromises."

BOV Chief Officer Operations, Michael Galea, said that a lot of thought and work has gone into designing the BOV Mobile customer experience that is aligned to the Bank's Brand Promise.

"Our teams have worked to make BOV Mobile customer oriented; to provide a seamless experience to the customer; to make the whole process straightforward and intuitive," he said.

Registration for BOV Mobile is done through the BOV Internet Banking service in a self explanatory three step process where one determines the mobile phone number that will be used for the BOV Mobile service.

At that stage, the customer receives an SMS on his smart phone with an activation code that is entered into the App on the smart phone giving immediate access to a wide range of mobile banking and payments services.

Through BOV Mobile, customers can

• make mobile payments through BOV Mobile Pay
• view the balances on any of their registered accounts
• view the transaction history on their registered accounts
• transfer funds between own accounts
• effect a bill payment and
• authorise transactions created on other BOV 24x7 channels.

Concluding the event, Borg said that the mobile phone linked to a mobile payments and banking platform is one big opportunity that the Bank is determined to develop for the benefit of its customers.

"BOV mobile is our response to this opportunity. It is one big innovation that we are proud to be bringing to the market and that is set to change the way people prefer to bank and to pay," he said.

Further information about BOV Mobile can be obtained from any BOV Branch, the Bank's Customer Service Centre on 2131 2020 or from the Bank's website www.bov.com. A comprehensive list of tips for safer mobile banking and payments is also available through the Bank's website.