Spanish bank Bankinter has launched its long-anticipated mobile-payments service based on host-card emulation, after being one of the first banks to propose an HCE-enabled service.

The mid-tier bank predicts there will be 30,000 users by the end of the year of its Mobile Virtual Card service, which is available on both Android and BlackBerry 10 devices. 

Bankinter, which developed the service with Spain-based technology supplier Seglan and what it says was assistance from Visa Europe, had pledged to have the system commercially launched by the second or third quarters. U.S.-based SafeNet, which is being acquired by Gemalto, provides the hardware security modules to generate the tokens used in the Mobile Virtual Card service.