The cover story of this month’s Bank Systems & Technology, “Who Will Be the Google of Mobile Payments?”, by reporter Penny Crossman, takes a look at the mobile payments landscape to assess which players are best positioned to lead this increasingly competitive sector. Bill Gajda, Visa’s head of mobile innovation, is confident that Visa and the other card networks, in conjunction with banks, will be at the center of mobile payments in the future.
The ability to link an existing financial account to a mobile phone and consumer convenience are two critical success factors in this race to deliver the most innovative payments options for consumers. Visa already has 23 mobile payment programs in 19 countries around the world, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Guatemala, India, Korea, Malaysia, Peru, Russia, South Africa, Taiwan and the U.S. We’re focusing on contactless payment solutions for Android, Blackberry and iPhone devices, and most recently conducted a trial program with transit agencies in New York. In the article, Bill highlights the importance of these trials in gathering critical insights that will help shape future innovation saying:
“Visa has been leading the way in defining the standards around proximity payments and developing some of the underlying technology…These trials will show us a lot about the convenience, the added security and the experience people can have by having payment capabilities on the handset.”
Bill also touches on the importance of interoperability in making mobile payments a reality.
“It will be easier, more scalable and more interoperable for people to have a mobile wallet onto which they can load whatever payment types they want and use it across multiple mobile payment markets.”
Posted by: Elvira Swanson, Visa Corporate Relations on November 11, 2010 at 4:59 pm
