Global payments technology company Visa and electronics producer Samsung announced a global alliance that combines Visa’s expertise in payments with Samsung’s leadership in mobile device technology, an alliance that has the potential to significantly accelerate the availability of mobile payments globally.
by Oana Coșman
According to the agreement, financial institutions that are planning to launch mobile payment programs will be able to use the Visa Mobile Provisioning Service to securely download payment account information to NFC-enabled Samsung devices. In addition, Samsung has agreed to load the Visa payWave applet onto its mobile devices featuring NFC technology. Visa payWave is Visa’s mobile payment applet that enables consumers to make “wave and pay” contactless payments using mobile devices.
Near Field Communication (NFC) technology is the global communication standard that enables mobile devices to securely communicate with a payment terminal. ABI Research forecasts that a total of 1.95 billion NFC-enabled devices will ship in 2017 . The Visa Samsung global alliance is a first of its kind between a leading NFC handset manufacturer and payment network that is paving the way for the implementation of large scale mobile payment programs.
In order to enable financial institutions to launch large scale mobile (NFC) payment programs, Samsung will offer banks the ability to load payment account information over-the-air to a secure chip embedded in Samsung gadgets, using Visa’s Mobile Provisioning Service which is linked to Samsung KMS (Key Management System) – a service that creates secure data storage domains for issuers.
According to the officials of the two companies, the Visa payWave mobile applet will be preloaded onto selected next-generation Samsung mobile devices featuring NFC technology and an embedded secure element. Off the shelf, these devices are ready to be personalized with Visa payment account information – a simple step that consumers will be able to initiate using a mobile payment application provided by their financial institution.
Visa will demonstrate Visa payWave for mobile and its Mobile Provisioning Service that can be used by financial institutions to securely load payment account information to NFC-enabled Samsung mobile devices at the Mobile World Congress 2013 in Barcelona, February 25-28.
