Visa and Samsung Team Up For Mobile Contactless Payments
Posted May 2nd, 2011
Contactless Technology Solution using near field communication
Two of the world’s leading companies have teamed up to change the way the world pays, again. First there was barter, then we moved on to currency. Then there were cheques, followed by credit cards which evolved to debit cards. Debit and credit cards, recently, have become contactless, thanks to something called Near Field Communication. Capitalising on that development, Samsung and Visa, both Olympic Games Sponsors, have teamed up to enable mobile handsets to use Near Field Communication so you can make payments without your credit or debit card, instead using your cellular phone.
The plans were announced on 31 March, 2011. Samsung and Visa jointly announced the latest innovation in payment technology, which would be a part of their sponsorship of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, which will be hosted in London. The goal is to provide a faster, more convenient and safe method of paying for purchases, using your mobile phone.
This innovation could, and probably will, change how you pay for your purchases for now and far into the future. You can probably already find a contactless point of sale system, even if you’re not paying attention to it. These systems look just like the typical card reader, except there’s a larger part housing new hardware. All you have to do right now, if you have a card equipped for NFC, is to pass your card near the hardware and the payment is made. Your card never has to touch the hardware. With the handsets, you’re going to use a special Visa Mobile Payments app, select “pay” and then hold your phone near the same piece of equipment.
Visa’s Quest for World Domination
Currently, Visa is already at work with banks and businesses throughout the world to roll out worldwide acceptance of Visa’s contactless cards. That same technology will be equipped to handle contactless payments from the new NFC equipped mobile phones. You can already find more than 60,000 of these systems in London alone, and you can expect that number to explode in the lead up to the 2012 Olympic Games thanks to the announcement on 31 March. The number is also expected to explode dramatically throughout the world in the run up to the games as the technology gets more attention.
Visa and Samsung are working together to provide the new handsets to their sponsored Olympic athletes for the games. They’re also working with mobile network operators around the world to provide these handsets to the average consumer, so that when the time comes you’ll have the technology in hand to make your payments without contact, even if you’ve forgotten your card because no one is without their smartphone these days. The phones will require a Visa enabled SIM card as well as the custom Visa Mobile Payments App.
Samsung has already proven that the technology exists and is a viable possibility. In 2010 they unveiled the first commercially available NFC enabled phone in France. The first phone was powered by Android, but they soon released another bada smartphone in the Mobile World Congress of 2011, so the technology is out there and it does work. This innovation could easily change the way we think about our phones and the way we make our payments, permanently.
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