Roland Pecsenye "the great visionary" of mobile payments who brought innovation in Romanian banks

Roland Pecsenye is one of the three founders and CEO of Hungarian company IND Group, “the great visionary who drives the company to the future” , as it is officially presented. He is the man who brought innovation in Romanian banking market, at two major banks, Banca Transilvania and Societe Generale subsidiary BRD. The first recently launched a mobile banking service that includes transfers through bump and QR codes and to a telephone number, the second provides money transfers through Facebook, a first in the country. Bancherul.ro interviewed the “great visionary”, who tells us how he foresee the evolution of mobile payments in Romania and worldwide.

Howe would you describe the mobile banking in Romania?

We feel that the Romanian mobile banking space is in a big change. There are several banks thinking about or already thought about new solutions they would like to launch: some of them have gone live already, some of them are in developing phase. We are involved deeply in a few of those initiatives, by providing technology for banks. The payments space will for sure be developing very rapidly, so the consumers are waiting for those kind of new services that banks has not yet adopted that fast as in other markets like Poland and Turkey, where are much more innovations going on by banks. But we feel that now the Romanian banks have understood this kind of new technologies as well, and there is a lot of money invested into new solutions as well as in marketing these solutions to the people to use them. That is why we feel that in the first quarter of 2014 there will be a game changing in the market, with big banks launching new services to attract the customers to mobile payments.

– What do you think will be the applications and technologies preferred by Romanian banks and their consumers?

– We believe that every device is a wallet and every device is a POS as well, so all the technology is in the hands or the banks customers, they are already equipped with all the technology they need to run the new very specific applications. Only those applications have to be provided by the banks to their customers, to enable them using these services, and we think we are on the right way. What we believe is that this new applications have to be very flexible and invoking a lot of different payment options and payments schemes. Not only a domestic transfer from an account A to an account B, but also bumping, reading QR code, NFC and even mobile remittances, Pay Pal, send money by e-mail, send money to a Facebook account, send money to a mobile number. These are all new ways of transferring money by giving the customer the choice of the preferred service: at which price he is willing and able to transfer money, to whom and how fast this payment is processed by the bank. This is I think the new way of mobile payments: enabling customers to make their choice, what kind of payments they would like to use.

– You are talking about comprehensive solutions for the mobile banking, different kind of transfers and payments in one app. So far we have seen different, separate mobile solutions like NFC, QR codes and wallets. What solution will emerge as the favorite for the banks clients? Is it possible to have only one application for all kind of services that you have mentioned?

– We think that if a bank is providing an application with all these varieties of payments schemes integrated in one application, then it is really giving the choice to the customers. The problem with mobile payments in the recent years has been that small alliances were formed between some companies, so that you are able to pay only with that specific card, or that specific bank, or that specific mobile provider, at those specific 20 merchants. And this is not a mass adoption. If you want to pay at most of the merchants, you have to download maybe 10 or 15 applications and open 15 different bank accounts, which doesn’t make sense. Consumers don’t want that. So we say that all these services have to be integrated into the app of the bank. And we say the wallet is already there at the customer site so if a bank is to issue a mobile banking application, it should include all these options for the clients. So at that moment it is really evolving to a wallet. A wallet for me is really replacing the wallet in my pocket, as all things that I have in it are in my phone: all my cards, all my payments instruments and as well all my payments schemes. All the options I have I should be able to chose them on my mobile phone. Even if I make an NFC payment with the card or if I do a bump with 2 mobile phones, if I read a QR code from a poster or other mobile phone, it should be all enabled in one specific app of the bank.

– But there is still not such an app at the banks…

– Not yet…

Are you preparing such solution for the Romanian market?

Read the entire interview in CLUBUL BANCHERILOR