E-commerce sites can store Bancontact card details

Online retailers in Belgium will soon be able to store customers' Bancontact details for future purchases.

Payment provider Bancontact Payconiq said the new system would be tested out on one e-commerce site at the beginning of March - without naming the site involved in the test. It will then be made available to all websites accepting Bancontact payments.

Bancontact said the option to store card details was being introduced after repeated requests from traders. Until now, sites have only been able to securely store Visa and Mastercard details.

"It is a good deal for traders and consumers," said Bancontact chief executive Nathalie Vandepeute. Shoppers will no longer have to enter their card details with every purchase. It also means Bancontact can be more easily used for recurring payments such as a mobile phone subscription.

According to Bancontact, new ways of paying digitally continue to grow. Contactless accounted for almost 10% of the 1.43 billion Bancontact transactions made last year.

The Payconiq app, which lets users scan a QR code and pay via their phone, was used last year for 65 million transactions.