Commercial Bank of Kuwait taps Thales for contactless payment technology

Commercial Bank of Kuwait (CBK) has picked Thales to digitise its credit and debit cards, allowing for contactless payments through the CBK mobile app.

Thales is supplying CBK with its Gemalto Trusted Services Hub (TSH), a service that enables secure contactless payments on smartphones. The technology uses tokenisation to secure customer data.

CBK customers can download the mobile banking app – available on Android devices for now – and register their payment cards. The digital versions of their card are made available immediately. The app can be used as a mobile wallet to make purchases in retail outlets.

“CBK is committed to offering its customers the most innovative and exciting banking services possible. The introduction of contactless mobile payment represents the latest stage on this journey, and also reflects our confidence in Thales to help us deliver the most advanced and recent digital payment innovations,” said AbdulAziz Essa Malak, AGM – Card Centre at CBK.

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The launch of mobile payments further extends the partnership between CBK and Thales. The bank, which is one of Kuwait’s largest financial institutions, already relies on Thales for their EMV contactless cards, and Instant Issuance solution for immediate cards personalisation and printing.

“Our contribution to CBK success is set on unrivalled security expertise and experience in mobile payment deployments for worldwide issuers and wallets providers. As we work ever-more closely with CBK, our objective is to offer new digital experiences to Kuwait’s young, demanding and tech-savvy consumers,” said Nassir Ghrous, senior vice president, Banking and Payment Services for Africa, Middle East and Eurasia region at Thales.