Bill Gadja, Visa’s head of mobile, has revealed that the company has signed an agreement with Samsung to incorporate Visa’s PayWave NFC payments system into all new Samsung smartphones. The big news was revealed ahead of a formal press announcement at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
The new deal will see Samsung users use Visa’s PayWave technology to pay with their mobiles. However, the new system will allow not only Visa cards to be added to Samsung phones, but also cards from other providers.
Visa already works with handset makers to enable NFC payments in certain mobiles, but this partnership will provide a much more smooth and secure payment experience for Samsung users. According to the agreement, financial institutions that are planning to launch mobile payment programs will be able to use the Visa Mobile Provisioning Service1 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.
According to Tech Crunch , the first mobile to be equipped with Visa’s technology will be the Samsung Galaxy S IV, which the company is to unveil on March 14 in New York. In all, the deal will insure that Visa’s PayWave will be incorporated to 100 million NFC-enabled devices in the next year.
Could this partnership bring mobile NFC payments to the mainstream?
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