Visa Europe has teamed with Canadian company Wireless Dynamics to develop an iPhone-based contactless payment system for consumers across Europe.
Visa claims that it has sponsored consumer research in Italy, Poland, Turkey and the United Kingdom that supports demand for mobile contactless payments, with 41 percent of those polled saying they definitely or probably would use a payment system from the credit-card provider. iPhone users seem even more keen, with 57 percent responding similarly, according to Visa.
With that in mind, Visa will leverage an iPhone accessory called the iCarte. The accessory can be attached to the devices to make payments when used together with a Visa Mobile application for iCarte App available in Apple’s iPhone App Store.
The iCarte accessory uses Near Field Communication (NFC) technology and embedded security that stores a person’s Visa card. Once coupled with the iCarte mobile application, people can make payments by touching the iPhone on any compatible point-of-sale terminal across Europe. Users don’t need to enter a PIN to use the service.
iCarte is compatible with iPhone 4, iPhone 3G S and iPhone 3G on iOS 3.1 or higher, and people can use multiple Visa accounts with it.
The first deployment of the service is in Turkey in collaboration with Yapi Kredi bank and Turkey’s largest mobile operator, Turkcell.
Mobile payments are being touted as the next wave in how people make purchases, and there are a variety of ways providers are using to payment-enable devices.
Visa’s approach is similar to an SIM-enabled one, which also uses NFC and stores information on a device’s SIM card for use with POS machines. People also can use their phones to send a payment request via text message and have the money taken out of their phone bill or an online payment system.
While the idea and technology for a mobile payment service has been around for about 10 years, 2011 is the year it’s expected to catch on in a big way, especially across Europe and Asia.
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