Visa eyes mobile payments market

VISA US chief executive John Philip Coghlan has announced a series of strategic partnerships with wireless technology companies, saying the mobile payments market was about to come of age.

Visa research had found that phone users were increasingly interested in the idea that their mobile device could be used for making payment transactions, Mr Coghlan said.

“Given the striking similarities in the paths our two industries have traveled, it is only natural we have arrived at a moment of convergence,” Mr Coghlan told the Cellular Telephone & Internet Association conference in Orlando.

“In fact, the convergence of payments and mobile communications is not just logical - it is inevitable.”

Visa recently announced its own mobile platform, a set of mobile services and enabling technologies that serve as flexible building blocks for the development of mobile payment solutions.

Mr Coghlan announced a strategic investment in dotMobi, a consortium of industry players pioneering the .mobi domain and is working on ways to enable mobile commerce into phones.

The company also announced an alliance and investment in Ecrio, which develops software for mobile phones on 3G networks. The company has software that lets barcode-enabled coupons and tickets be redeemed from mobile phones using existing point of sales equipment.

Mr Coghlan also said that VeriSign had announced it support the Visa mobile platform. Visa is also working with Qualcomm and Kyocera Wireless on integrating the Visa mobile platform in handsets.

Mr Coghlan said Visa research had found that four out of five consumers would prefer mobile purchases to pass through a credit or debit card network and appear on their card statement instead of appearing on their wireless bill.

Fifty-seven percent of consumers surveyed expressed interest in getting a phone with a payment application when shown what a payment-enabled phone might look like, and nearly 90 per cent of those who were interested in mobile payment said they would pay extra for a phone with this feature.

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Barcodes on mobile phones could be the ticket

A NEW technology that sends barcodes to mobile phones that can be read by standard point of sales devices could become a new standard for selling tickets and redeemable vouchers.

US-based communications and commerce software developer Ecrio has launched the system called MoBeam lets companies send gift certificates, vouchers, and tickets to mobile phone screens which are then read by existing point of sale devices.

Ecrio said technologists have know for years how to send barcode information to mobile phones – via email, SMS, WAP and other mediums – but had so far been unable to transfer that information to barcode scanning devices.

Issues with screen resolution, reflection and other technical limitations have prevented scanners from effectively reading the barcodes displayed on a mobile screen.

The MoBeam system finally solves these longstanding problems, enabling the instant transmission of any barcode sequence from the handset to the scanner, Ecrio said.

“MoBeam is the missing link between today's mobile consumer and a worldwide commerce infrastructure based on barcodes,” Ecrio chairman and chief executive Nagesh Challa said.

“For instance, a traveller using mobile search functions can be sent a digital coupon, easily redeemed at point-of-sale via the traveller's handset.”

“With over 35 million scanners in place across the United States alone, the existing barcode network will be in place for years to come,” Mr Challa said.

“We look forward to helping retailers, financial services companies, carriers, handset makers and other barcode partners take advantage of an ecosystem that delivers tickets, coupons, gift cards and more directly into the hands of consumers.”

Ecrio said the new service would be available globally and that Visa International had agreed to integrate MoBeam barcode technology into its recently announced mobile platform.

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