Spanish bank BBVA said its wallet app, which was recently upgraded for NFC-based payments, has been downloaded 250,000 times since launch in December last year.

The bank claims BBVA Wallet as the most widely used bank app for mobile payments in Spain, and one of the most popular in the world.

The app is notable because it blazed a trail for enabling NFC-based payments via host card emulation (HCE) technology.

An updated, HCE version of the app was launched at the start of July, at which point BBVA Wallet had “over 200,000 users”.

The new figure implies nearly 50,000 users have signed up to the version of the app that allows mobile payments.

And the bank forecasts 500,000 BBVA customers may download the app by the end of the year.

Mind you, the bank does not breakout how many of its 250,000 base are active.

In addition, the banks says the app has been rolled out to its own employees, as well as customers. It is unclear how many of the 250,000 figure are internal users.

The app is currently only available in Spain, although the bank aims to launch it in Chile, Mexico and the US by year-end.