Orange Spain has confirmed that it will finally start trialling a mobile banking service in the summer months before an official launch before the end of the year, reports business daily El Economista. The company’s chief executive Laurent Paillassot revealed the plans during the presentation of Orange’s first-quarter results, announcing that in-depth testing of Orange Bank’s equipment and technological systems will be carried out throughout the summer, with November slated as the launch date.
The Orange Bank platform has been available in France since November 2017, combining the attributes of a traditional bank with a mobile offering delivered via a dedicated app for compatible Android and Apple smartphones. The service allows customers to pay either with a Visa bank card or via mobile payment (in partnership with Wirecard Bank), send money by SMS using SEPA transfer and check their bank balance in real time. According to a recent report, the service had reached a customer base of just over 200,000 accounts by January 2019, well behind the commercial target of 400,000 for its first year of operation.
