Visa and Samsung has 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.
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.
"Samsung devices enabled with Visa payment functionality will no doubt be a powerful product offering - especially in markets where paying with a mobile device is becoming commonplace," said Jim McCarthy, global head of product, Visa.
However, the key to making mobile payments broadly available all over the world is to offer financial institutions a secure way to provision millions of smartphones with payment account information - and that is exactly what Visa and Samsung are ready to deliver added McCarthy.
"Samsung has been a pioneer in NFC devices and is again leading the way in enabling NFC-based mobile payments. The partnership with Visa represents a step towards a global mobile payment platform." said Dr. Won-Pyo Hong, president and head of Media Solution Center, Samsung Electronics.
We believe that we have a strong value proposition for financial institutions that will ultimately allow consumer choice in NFC payments added Hong.
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.
The initial areas of engagement that the two companies have agreed to include: Agreeing to work together to enable the next generation of Samsung mobile devices with Visa payment technology, and to partner with financial institutions to accelerate the availability of mobile payment solutions globally; Samsung will offer banks the ability to load payment account information over-the-air to a secure chip embedded in Samsung devices; and Visa payWave mobile applet will be preloaded onto selected next-generation Samsung mobile devices featuring NFC technology and an embedded secure element.