Digital payments are everywhere: In web shops, in apps and at the cash register with the smartphone. Paying with the smartphone and without contact instead of with cash is growing increasingly important, especially in times of COVID-19. Wallets on mobile devices are becoming the main interface of banks with the consumer and they offer contactless payment with debit and credit cards at the POS, requiring no contact with terminal.

Netcetera's digital wallet implementation for Halkbank is the first one in North Macedonia to use the Consumer Device Cardholder Verification Method (CDCVM). This means that the cardholders can authenticate on their device using biometric authentication methods without entering a PIN on the POS terminal. “As one of the first banks to launch a wallet in North Macedonia, we are truly developing the market together with Netcetera. They enable us to offer our customers secure, easier and faster digital payments – without having to touch cash, a credit card or even a terminal. This is indeed a big step in digital transformation of banking in the region.,” says Atila Selim, Head of Alternative Distribution Channels Marketing at Halkbank.

Halkbank’s wallet is based on Netcetera’s white-label wallet from their ToPay product suite. The wallet opens the North Macedonian market for mobile contactless payment and offers user onboarding based on bank credentials. With this user-friendly wallet, Halkbank can offer their customers new and important functions for digital payments. These include, for example, list of transactions, transaction details, or the digitization and management of credit as well as debit cards via tokenization services from Mastercard (MDES) and VISA (VTS).

Petre Bozhikov, responsible for sales and business development of secure digital payments in SEE at Netcetera, says: “Our scheme-certified wallet supports strong customer authentication (SCA), making Halkbank compliant with regulations like PSD2, without having to go through any certifications. With the contactless payment function and biometric authentication methods, we boosted Halkbank to the forefront of the digital payment market.”