Bankia : launches first app for banks’ POS terminals for virtual and physical payments

• Incorporates new functionalities in these terminals used by retailers to charge customers for their products and services
• Project designed for POS terminals of businesses signed up to BeBankia: Bankia's application that connects retailers with customers through discounts and promotions
• Retailers can run loyalty campaigns targeting customers who have used BeBankia
• Customers can shop online 24 hours a day through the BeBankia application or at the store direct
• BeBankia available to all retailers and individuals, whether they be Bankia customers or not

Bankia has launched the first app on the market for point of sale (POS) terminals - also known as dataphones - for virtual and physical payments. The initiative bundles the functionalities of a physical POS with those of a virtual POS in a single device.

This innovation project targets the POS terminals of businesses signed up to BeBankia: Bankia's application that connects retailers with customers through discounts and promotions. The app shows customers the discounts and offers of the closest retailers to them using geopositioning.

The bank's aim with BeBankia is to help retailers boost their sales by providing a virtual shop window in which they can display their offers and promotions - a new sales channel alongside the traditional physical stores.

The POS terminals with this new technology can be used to pay for purchases made through the BeBankia online channel using a purchase code and also using a mobile telephone number.

Retailers with these new POS terminals can also issue refunds for previously authorised transactions, consult transactions completed in the BeBankia environment on the same or previous days, and check total sales, as well as other information.

Loyalty campaigns

Retailers are also able to use BeBankia to run communication and loyalty campaigns targettng BeBankia customers.

'After actively listening to retailers who use our bank, we found that one of their main requirements was to incorporate the app initially designed for smart phones into the traditional POS terminal,making them straightforward and comfortable to use', explains Carmen Chicharro, financial product and service innovation director at Bankia.

This innovation project is part of the bank's drive to work with the fintech ecosystem. It was developed in partnership with the Spanish startup, Paythunder.

Retailers can create offers with BeBankia in less than a minute. Once validated in the platform, they can control how many hits the offer has had, how many potential customers have clicked for more information, and how many have made a purchase.

BeBankia is available to all retailers, whether they be Bankia customers or not. Customers can shop online 24 hours a day through the BeBankia application or at the store direct.

The app is available for Android and IOS devices, and can be downloaded from Google Play or Apple's App Store, respectively.

One of Bankia's overriding goals is to become a leader in proximity retailing: a segment that the bank sees as strategic.