Worldnet Brings ‘Quickchip’ To POS; Lurraldebus Rolls Out Mobile Tickets

Welcome to The Axis, your late look at payments news from around the world. Coverage includes a mobile wallet pilot by Banco Agrario, Telefonica Colombia and Comviva in Columbia. In addition, Ireland-based Worldnet has teamed up with ID TECH to deliver Quickchip for its GoChip products, and Spain-based inter-city transportation service Lurraldebus is bringing mobile ticketing to its customers with the help of Masabi.

Ireland-based Worldnet has teamed up with ID TECH to deliver Quickchip in its GoChip point-of-sale (POS) products, the companies said in an announcement. The Quickchip technology seeks to deliver a “one-second” chip card transaction for the consumer and to provide the merchant with greater fraud protection.

In addition, the technology allows merchants to migrate from their magnetic stripe reader (MSR) POS devices to a low-cost chip-based solution. In all, Worldnet Co-founder and CEO Will Byrne said the Quickchip technology “minimizes transaction time for consumers, delivers increased security and reduces exposure to fraud for the merchants.”

In other news, Spain-based inter-city transportation service Lurraldebus has launched mobile ticketing with Masabi’s Justride platform, according to an announcement from Masabi. By using the LurTicket system, passengers can purchase tickets through an app on their smartphones. When passengers board their buses, they show their scannable mobile tickets. The ticket app was developed by Gertek with the Justride software development kit (SDK).

“The introduction of mobile ticketing for Lurraldebus services will help make riding the bus more convenient for passengers,” Masabi CEO Brian Zanghi said in the announcement. “This landmark project marks yet another country in which Justride has been deployed, and we are very excited to be working with Lurraldebus and our partners Gertek to enable passengers to buy tickets anywhere, anytime at the touch of a button.”

On another note, Banco Agrario, Telefonica Colombia and Comviva have teamed up for a mobile wallet project in Colombia, the companies said in an announcement. The project seeks to bring digital financial services to the country’s rural population and agricultural producers through mobile phones. With the pilot, customers will be able to complete functions such as transfers and utility bill payments. In addition, Banco Agrario’s bank tellers and branchless banking agents will offer last-mile services, such as deposits and withdraws.

Banco Agrario CEO Luis Enrique Dussán López said that 59 percent of adults in the rural areas of Colombia do not have a financial account. The pilot project, however, “will help to bank the financially excluded people by providing simple and cost-effective mobile financial services to agricultural producers, rural population and people living in remote areas.”