Tag: smartphone payments

Visa and Orange have now announced that they will be working together in this new service.

Orange, a French operator group, has now entered into a strategic partnership with Visa, the credit card giant, in order to help to speed up the awareness of using NFC technology for contactless mobile payments in the country.

The operator has also launched a smartphone based prepayment solution in France called Orange Cash.

These two companies are collaborating to make sure that rate by which consumers are discovering mobile payments based on NFC technology will be considerably accelerated in France. Both of these companies have stated that their goal is to boost awareness of the benefits of using near field communications tech for contactless transactions. They feel that France is a solid marketplace for this type of effort as it is already seeing an increasing adoption among consumers.

The companies stated that in the last half year, contactless mobile payments terminals in France have increased by 50 percent.

In the last six months, the number of terminals used by French merchants that include contactless mobile payments has risen by over 50 percent. This means that today there are more than 200,000 active terminals in the country. Moreover, there has been a tremendous NFC technology enabled smartphone deployment in the country, which ensures that a growing number of consumers actually have the necessary tech to complete contactless transactions.

The prepayments service called Orange Cash will become available to subscribers to Orange that have NFC technology compatible smartphones in Caen and in Strasbourg in the first part of 2014. This will be the first stage in a nationwide launch of the mobile payments program within the second quarter of next year.

Customers using this program will need to download the app for Orange Cash from the app store that is applicable to their device, and then simply top up the account with funds by choosing their bank card. In order to actually make a mobile payment through this service, they will simply need to tap their NFC technology enabled device against a compatible payment terminal at the checkout of the retailer’s location.

According to industry leaders, the technology is now starting a wave in the country.

According to some of the latest data out of Canada, mobile payments, such as money transfers, are starting to pick up quite quickly, as the industry reaches the close of its second year within the country.

Contactless transactions, specifically, are starting to take hold inside that country.

Though the case on the other side of the world, in India, is showing a massive hesitation to adopt mobile payments technology, the exact opposite appears to be happening in Canada. The true strength in this part of the industry appears to be in contactless technology – NFC technology. Tap and go is catching on and Canadians are starting to become accustomed to it.

MasterCard has now ranked Canada as the second most prepared country for mobile payments.

The ranking from MasterCard placed only Singapore ahead of Canada in terms of being prepared for the widespread adoption of mobile payments. It assigned a score of 0 to 100. Canada scored a 42, whereas Singapore received a score of 45.6. The global average was 33.2.

That said, despite the widespread adoption of smartphones in India and its tremendous population, it is still lagging behind the world at a score of only 31.5. This ranking was the result of the data accumulated by MasterCard in a survey that involved the participation of mobile networks, banks, and governments. It revealed that in the Mobile Commerce Clusters score, Canada has fared very well.

At the same time, aside from mobile payments, the survey also identified a number of other trends. For example, credit and debit cards are continuing to grow their share of the overall industry over other methods such as cash and checks. Approximately one in three total transactions are done by cash, and card transactions are picking up considerably within the sound financial system of that country.

Smartphone penetration is also considerable in Canada. That, along with the cooperation of the government, mobile networks, and banks, has meant that this market is increasingly prepared to take part in mobile payments on a mainstream scale.