Tag: mobile payments europe

The credit card giant has broadened its offerings in Europe with two new features.

Visa Europe has just announced that it is adding two new features to its mobile payments offerings, with the addition of Immediate Payments and Multi Currency.

These two new features are meant to make the service more convenient and appealing to users.

These services will make it possible for the mobile payments program from Visa to let users make transactions instantly from their smartphones to any other Visa cardholder on the European continent. That will provide a number of benefits, says Visa, to both the sender and the recipient of the funds.

Visa has stated that these two new mobile payments features will become available before the end of 2013.

The purpose of the Multi Currency mobile payments features, explained Visa, was to make it possible to simplify a process that they called expensive and complex, when it comes to being able to send and receive money over the borders of the various countries throughout Europe.

At the same time, the Immediate Payments feature has already become available within the United Kingdom. This mobile payments option will expand throughout other European markets as the year progresses. It is meant to give consumers the chance to be able to receive funds that are sent through Visa Personal Payments within a span of minutes, instead of having to wait for a much longer and drawn out transaction process.

To be able to take advantage of this mobile payments service, consumers will need register and will need to know both the mobile number and the Visa credit card number of the funds recipient.

According to Sandra Alzetta, the senior vice president of Visa Europe, when discussing the industry and these new additions, “Mobile payments have the potential to fundamentally change the way that people pay and are paid. The new Multi Currency and Immediate Payments features combine the convenience of mobile device use with the ability to send money to 460 million Visa cardholders across Europe, solving a problem that millions of consumers face every day – giving money to another individual easily and securely.”

Deutsche Telekom finds new partners to expand mobile payments throughout Europe

Deutsche Telekom, one of the largest telecommunications companies in Europe, has found two new vendors to support its deployment of NFC-based mobile commerce systems. These vendors are B+S Card Services and Intercard. Together, the vendors form a network through which NFC-based mobile payments can be made more available to consumers. In Europe, the demand for comprehensive mobile commerce services is increasing rapidly, pressuring Deutsche Telekom to reach out for partners in its continued efforts to make mobile payments more common.

NFC-based mobile payments to be major focus

The telecommunications company has been an advocate of mobile payments for some time, favoring solutions that make use of NFC technology. This technology is responsible for facilitating mobile payments as it allows for digital information to be transmitted over short distanced. Indeed, NFC is one of the pillars of the mobile commerce world, helping it take form and expanding its acceptance throughout the world. Deutsche Telekom has been developing several NFC-based mobile commerce platforms in order to meet the growing needs of consumers.

Infrastructure to be expanded in Germany

The vendors will help bolster the infrastructure required to process mobile payments at point-of-sale terminals and vending machines. These efforts will be primarily focused on the German market initially. Expansion of this infrastructure is likely to happen within the next few years, as mobile commerce becomes more common in several industries. These efforts are just a portion of the overall plan of Deutsche Telekom, which has been branching into several fields of mobile commerce to find ways to promote mobile payments among consumers.

NFC may be becoming less popular in mobile commerce

NFC technology has been the subject of criticism for some time, mostly due to its lackluster security features. Some companies claim that NFC is just not capable of providing the security necessary to make mobile commerce common among consumers. Along with the current lack of NFC-enabled mobile devices, the technology is quickly becoming a less prominent focus on the mobile commerce field.