This brings regulations for smartphone based transactions into the country, making the tech usable.
Dilma Rousseff, the President of Brazil, has now given approval to a brand new law that brings regulations to the mobile payments sector into the country in order to guide the businesses and consumers who wish to take part in this type of transaction.
This new law has formed an identity within the country that will make the transactions possible.
The law, which is number 12,865, has created a new form of legal identity, now known as a “payments institution”. This entity will receive its regulation from the Brazilian Central Bank. It will meant that consumers in Brazil will be able to take advantage of mobile payments and banking services from banks, financial institutions, and merchants.
These mobile payments will be targeted particularly toward consumers in the lower income brackets.
The original intentions of the government were outlined in plans for the regulation over mobile payments as a whole in Brazil, back in May of this year. That original introduction came in the form of a bill that required common standards for this type of transaction that would be maintained throughout the country. It also stated that these services must be interoperable among the various smartphone based transaction programs in the country.
More recently, in September, the Chamber of Deputies and the Brazilian Senate both gave their approval to the mobile payments bill. From that stage, it was moved onward to the desk of the president in order to make it possible for it to be passed into a law.
Now that the president has, indeed, approved the law, it is up to the Brazilian Central Bank to be able to come up with the rules for mobile payments operators to follow in order to offer this type of transaction. The Brazilian Central Bank has 180 days as of the signing of the law by the president in order to create those regulations to be followed by that sector of the industry. The near future will be very defining to the ability of Brazilians to be able to pay using their smartphones.
TIM, a Brazilian carrier, has announced that it is beginning the new program using near field communication.
Wireless carrier from Brazil, TIM, has just revealed that it is launching a mobile payment pilot service that will be based on NFC technology in order to test the effectiveness within the region.
The program is running as a part of a partnership with Banco Itaú, a bank in Brazil.
It is also working with MasterCard, in addition to Redecard (a point of sale manufacturer) and Gemalto, which is a digital security provider. This joint venture pilot project will include a small beta testing group as well as the participation of 100 Rio de Janeiro and São Paolo restaurants.
The carrier has explained that they wish to learn more about the use and behaviors around NFC technology.
This pilot will help them to get to know the way that consumers wish to use NFC technology, what their expectations may be and how it works for restaurants. It will also provide the opportunity to train their employees internally and observe the type of challenges that they may expect as a result of a more extensive rollout.
Based on the results that they experience due throughout the length of the pilot program, TIM has said that it is considering expanding the use of NFC technology enabled mobile payments. This could mean that if the program is successful, the nearly 70 million subscribers at that company will have access to the service as soon as the second half of this year.
According to the TIM Brazil CMO, Roger Solé, “TIM has innovation as a strategic pillar and, once again, comes out ahead with the test of a technology that promises to be an important evolution of mobile. This partnership with Itau and our quest to evaluate the NFC model demonstrates our concern to offer solutions that bring more convenience to customers.”
The NFC technology enabled credit cards will be MasterCard branded. These will be used by the few participants in the pilot program. The over-the air account provisioning will be supplied by Gemalto. They will also be providing their well respected services management solutions. MasterCard PayPass tech will be used for making payments at the restaurant points of sale.
