Samsung and Visa have launched a global partnership over mobile payments that aims to increase the use of near field communication (NFC) and smartphones as payment devices.
The partnership marks the first collaboration between a smartphone company and a major payment network over NFC and should accelerate the take-up of contactless payments in countries such as the UK, where they have yet to become widely-used.
Under the partnership Visa will include its payWave applet on the next generation of Samsung NFC-enabled smartphones. The technology enables customers to add Visa payment account information to make contactless payments. Visa will also partner with financial institutions (FI) to speed the rollout of global mobile payment solutions.
“Samsung has been a pioneer in NFC devices and is again leading the way in enabling NFC-based mobile payments,” said Won-Pyo Hong, president and head of media solution centre, Samsung Electronics. “The partnership with Visa represents a step towards a global mobile payment platform.”
FIs that wish to launch a mobile payments program will be able to use the Visa Mobile Provisioning Service to load payment account information over-the-air (OTA) to a secure chip in Samsung NFC-enabled devices.