[Techtaffy Newsdesk]
BARCELONA, SPAIN – Mobile World Congress
Vodafone and Visa have formed a worldwide partnership to enable consumers to pay for goods and services using their mobile phones. The companies will work together to develop a Vodafone-branded proposition that will be offered to consumers across Vodafone’s 398-million customer base in more than 30 countries across five continents, enabled by Visa’s outstanding payment network, product suite and brand.
The new Vodafone mobile payment proposition announced with Visa will be based on the Visa prepaid account and offered to consumers in partnership with Visa Issuers. The service will initially be launched in Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Turkey, and the UK, starting in the coming financial year. Other countries within Vodafone’s global portfolio will follow.
Vodafone and Visa will also work together to enable Visa Issuers for mobile payments globally. The platform will be open to all partners of all relevant industries, including financial institutions, retailers, transport and utility companies to host their services within an innovative new Vodafone mobile wallet.
Vittorio Colao (Group CEO, Vodafone): The Vodafone mobile wallet represents the next stage of the smartphone revolution.
In developed countries across Europe, North America and Australia, with a mature infrastructure for electronic payments, users of the Vodafone stored value account will be able to make purchases at the-point-of sale using Near Field Communications (NFC) enabled smartphones equipped with Visa payWave for mobile.
The agreement forms part of Vodafone’s broader mobile commerce strategy to provide consumers with a comprehensive mobile-based alternative to the cash and cards within their wallets and purses. The Vodafone mobile wallet will use NFC technology to send encrypted data over short distances to enable secure transactions, with customer protection assured by the use of the latest secure SIM card and payments industry technology. In addition to stored value accounts, it will also hold loyalty scheme points and gift voucher credits, complementing and sometimes replacing a whole class of plastic cards in the customer’s wallet or purse.
All Vodafone mobile wallet services – including the service announced with Visa today – will be compatible with standards currently being ratified by the global mobile industry body, the GSM Association.
[Image Courtesy: Visa]