The Woo Group Review: RBC first bank in North America with Host Card Emulation

RBC Wallet available to more Canadians, devices and carriers

The Woo Group Review RBC Wealth Management Hong Kong USA – TORONTO, December 18, 2014 -  RBC today announced the addition of Host Card Emulation (HCE) to the RBC Mobile app, allowing Canadians to pay with most Android mobile phones without worrying about being on the right mobile network or having the right SIM card. RBC is the first North American financial institution to develop a HCE payment solution, providing more clients with more choice.

HCE allows clients to use any near field communication (NFC) enabled Android phone to pay at the point of sale with the RBC Mobile app anywhere in the world. The new solution will be first available to a group of RBC employees, allowing them to pay with their RBC Interac Debit card, leveraging Interac Flash contactless functionality. Visa and MasterCard will be added shortly.

“We are committed to providing our clients with the most innovative, convenient and secure solutions to pay how they want, when they want - HCE is a critical step,” said Linda Mantia, Executive Vice-President of Digital, Payments and Cards, RBC. “HCE makes RBC Secure Cloud mobile payments even easier to use.”

The employee pilot begins on December 18, 2014 and will run through winter. This pilot will allow RBC employees to test HCE on most Android devices and mobile networks using their RBC Interac Debit card. Credit cards and other value-added services will be coming shortly.

“As a leading innovator within the Canadian payments space, we are pleased to support RBC on the addition of HCE to the RBC Mobile app,” said Mark O’Connell, president and CEO, Interac Association and Acxsys Corporation.

About RBC and Payment Innovation

RBC is at the forefront of payment innovation. We provide industry-leading mobile banking flexibility and convenience to clients through our RBC Mobile app and RBC Canada app – available for Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad and Windows 8 – backed by our RBC Online Banking Security Guarantee. Further information about RBC mobile solutions is available at www.rbcroyalbank.com/mobile. More information about the RBC Wallet is available at www.rbc.com/securecloud.

ABOUT RBC

Royal Bank of Canada is Canada’s largest bank, and one of the largest banks in the world, based on market capitalization. We are one of North America’s leading diversified financial services companies, and provide personal and commercial banking, wealth management services, insurance, investor services and capital markets products and services on a global basis. We employ approximately 78,000 full- and part-time employees who serve more than 16 million personal, business, public sector and institutional clients through offices in Canada, the U.S. and 38 other countries. For more information, please visit rbc.com.

RBC supports a broad range of community initiatives through donations, sponsorships and employee volunteer activities. In 2013, we contributed more than $104 million to causes worldwide, including donations and community investments of more than $69 million and $35 million