Tag: mobile payments news

Soon, passengers on the railway networks across France will be able to use smartphones to pay for fare.

It has just been announced that the TGV trains in France will now be accepting mobile payments from passengers who will be able to use wireless systems to pay for their travel fare.

The railway operator, SNCF, in France, has adopted a state of the art transaction system compatible with wireless devices.

According to the latest news, the mobile payments system for the trains will use technology from VeriFone Systems, a tech firm from California. This will let a mobile device with the right app to be used to purchase railway tickets. The original deployment of handheld devices started back in April and by the time August is complete, it is believed that there will be 12,000 units deployed across the system.

The mobile payments system is comparable to ones that have been used in several other European countries.

The mobile payments devices being deployed across the world recognized high speed TGV trains in France will accept both domestic and international EMV card transactions. They will also be able to process the sale of the tickets and provide receipts and information services for the train riders. The gateway service at VeriFone collects and routes all forms of electronic transactions and also make it possible to use both the traditional type of card and contactless, smartphone, and online transactions.

According to the SNCF department director for train information systems, “VeriFone’s unique managed payment solution makes it possible for SNCF to further improve efficiency and productivity on our trains by adding on-board payment to our mobile solution.” She added that “Mobile payment further enhances passenger convenience and is a natural complement to existing capabilities of access to real-time information such as train schedules and seating availability.”

Similar mobile payments tools have been seen in other countries over the last few months, such as Turkey and Spain. Neither of these have used VeriFone technology, but they are proving to be popular among their passengers. Turkey’s service began in April, while the offering in Spain began in May.

A recent market analysis has revealed that smartphones will become a major game changer in shopping.

Though slow to get started, mobile payments could soon prove to be extremely important to the retail shopping experience, as consumers begin to feel that using the devices as digital forms of credit and debit cards, as well as for loyalty programs, is trustworthy and convenient.

This trend would dramatically change the consumer experience as everything will be contained in one place.

Though wallets are stored, locked away, or left behind, in various situations, the odds are that a person will always have his or her smartphone in hand or pocket. Retailers are already using mobile commerce to appeal to online shoppers who access the internet with their smartphones and tablets, and now they are beginning to see the potential benefit from receiving transactions through these devices, as well.

Some feel that mobile payments could be the biggest revolution in retail in many decades.

A recent Business Insider report has stated that the “old dream of the digital wallet is coming true in a very mobile-led fashion.” The report indicated that by the end of last year, in the United States there were already approximately 7.9 million consumers who had adopted a system compatible with NFC technology (near field communications) or QR codes. These include examples, such as MasterCard PayPass, Visa Wallet, Google Wallet, and others that use apps for processing the transactions.

Equally, mobile payments through credit card readers on devices, such as PayPal, Square, and I Love Velvet reported processing transactions worth more than $10 billion last year.

Another report, this one recently issued by Gartner, has predicted that around the world, mobile payments transactions will break the $235 billion mark by the end of this year. That would be an increase of 44 percent over the figure from 2011.

When it comes to examples of mobile payments successes, Starbucks is typically said to be the leader as it has effectively implemented a range of different types of transactions, including everything from loyalty cards to QR code based purchases with a refillable retailer account.