Visa Europe on Monday revealed that its V.me by Visa digital wallet service will launch in the fall in the UK, Spain, and France. At the same time, payments processor WorldPay will be a key development partner of the platform in the UK. More partners, such as banks and retailers, will be named before the autumn.
Visa has dropped Global Payments from its registry of approved third-party payment card transaction processors. Visa took the step after it was revealed last Friday that the firm's security had been breached. Personal information for cardholders of nearly 1.5 million Visa and MasterCard cards could be at risk.
Third-party payment card processor Global Payments has had its security compromised, putting nearly 50,000 MasterCard and Visa holders at risk, sources told the Wall Street Journal. The two major credit cards have been alerting their customers and banks that issue their cards regarding this breach, though MasterCard said its own systems remain secure. It has also hired an unnamed independent data security organization to look into the hack.
Isis, the mobile commerce venture between AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon have finalized their wireless payment standard for mobile devices, calling it Isis Mobile Wallet. It's due to launch this summer, with Chase, Capital One, and Barclaycard being the first banks to sign up and have their credit, debit, and prepaid cards be compatible with the system. The first merchants to support the system will be located in Salt Lake City and Austin, Texas. Like Google Wallet, its major competitor, Isis Mobile Wallet let users securely pay for goods and merchandise with their handsets.
Visa has reportedly chosen the label V.me to represent its upcoming digital wallet service, which will be paired with a developer program. The service aims to compete with PayPal and other alternatives, providing users with a quick way to make web-based payments without typing in a full credit-card number.
Square significantly widened the reach of its mobile payment reader hardware on Monday with a retail expansion. The device was already available at Apple stores but is now available at Best Buy, Radio Shack, and Target. The reach gives it 9,000 potential places to buy the iOS- and Android-ready add-on, which normally costs $10 and should give users an equal amount of initial credit in payments.
It has been confirmed that Samsung will follow the tradition it started with the 2008 Beijing Olympics and offer a special edition phone to commemorate the upcoming 2012 games in London. The confirmation came, not from Samsung, but from Visa, an official sponsor and sole credit card processor for the London event. Visa is trying to make the games a "contactless" experience for its attendees.
As hinted earlier, Google Wallet on Monday went active for real users. The service in starting off will still work on just Citi MasterCards and the virtual Google Prepaid Card, but is now opening to rival cards. American Express, Discover, and Visa are all making their NFC specs available to let banks add the cards to the mobile payment system.
Visa on Tuesday said it would ramp up its NFC mobile payment plans. Its support for the short-range credit card payments would now include dual-mode chips that can support Europay along with domestic standards. The hardware would also bring in dynamic authentication that would introduce very specific values for each deal: even a replica card or fake data on a phone wouldn't work because it would produce different values each time.
Isis on Tuesday said it had landed the top four credit card companies in the US for its mobile payment plans. American Express, Discover, MasterCard, and Visa have all agreed to handle payments from NFC-based phones when the service goes live in the first six months of 2012. The approach may give it at least a temporary edge over Google Wallet, which is so far limited to MasterCard.
VeriFone partly bowed to pressure on Wednesday with the introduction of PayWare Mobile Enterprise for Tablets. The option will give iPads, as well as Android 3 tablets, a hardware card reader and app combination that can serve as a store checkout much like Square's eponymous readers. The VeriFone option claims an edge with PIN-based debit cards and support for NFC devices that can tap to make a payment, such as a Nexus S 4G using Google Wallet.
Square on Tuesday gave out invitations to its first real special event. A gathering at the company's San Francisco headquarters on May 23 at 10AM local time will provide "exciting news." Few clues were given out beyond the media being asked to "see what's in the cards."
The US Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit seeking to block Verifone from gobbling up rival point-of-sale (POS) credit card information equipment vendor Hypercom. According to DOJ, the market is very concentrated. Verifone holds a 48 percent share of the US market, Hypercom, a 18 percent share, and French-based Ingenico 26 percent. Verifone had planned to sell off Hypercom's US operation to Ingenico, hoping that would pave the way for Governmental approval. However, the Justice department saw things differently.
Visa as it promised last week provided early details of a new mobile payment system. The company is creating a mobile wallet that would use NFC wireless along with the credit card firm's payWave app for buying items in stores and online as well as payments between device owners. Several institutions are already onboard and include Barclaycard US, the Pentagon Federal Credit Union, and US Bank among others in the US as well as most major Canadian banks.
Visa’s executive chairman and CEO has revealed that the company will be describing more about its mobile payments strategy in the coming weeks. In yesterday's second-quarter earnings call, the Visa executive indicated that the financial services company could be issuing an announcement as soon as next week.
Isis, the coalition of US wireless carriers AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile to bring NFC payments on handsets to the masses, will not go forward as planned earlier, according to reports on Wednesday. While trials were due to start early in 2012, the three carriers have now purportedly agreed to change their approach and make it less advanced. Instead, they will create a "mobile wallet" that will link users' existing Visa, MasterCard or other major credit cards to the account, though this is not official yet.
Square has quietly confirmed that a new version of its reader was coming with built-in encryption. The iOS and Android device will now have safeguards even during the swipe itself. COO Keith Rabois said the goal was to meet Visa's best practices for mobile apps, including encryption across the entire process.
Visa in a symbolic step said it had invested in Square. The undisclosed amount will be accompanied by a Visa executive sitting on the company's advisory board. Visa representative Ryan Donovan explained the decision to the New York Times as a way of spurring credit card use by getting it to businesses that wanted to, but couldn't, take payments due to the location or cost.
Samsung and Visa have announced a partnership to deliver NFC mobile phone payments for the London 2012 Olympics. The partnership will deliver a special Olympic and Paralympic games handset for sponsored athletes to take advantage of Visa’s contactless payment system. The phone will carry a Visa-enabled SIM card to work with the system that has already been deployed in 60,000 locations throughout London.
Skype, the VoIP and video calling service, has announced on Monday that it will for the first bring advertising to its Windows program. The first markets to do so include the US, the UK and Germany, with early spots coming from Groupon, Nokia, Universal Pictures, and Visa. These companies will advertise daily, and users will have the option to get in touch with the ad producer through a Click & Call button.
Visa has reportedly started testing a trial deployment of its iPhone-based payment system for a limited number of customers residing in Europe. A NearField Communications World survey conducted by Visa Europe in the UK, Italy, Poland and Turkey suggests 87 percent of iPhone users would consider making mobile payments from the iPhone via an attached accessory.
A new company is sending out letters claiming that websites that use rollover images and pulldown menu are infringing on its licenses. What seems to be a patent troll, Webvention, is asking for a one-time license fee of $80,000 in what's billed as a temporary campaign, Ars Technica reported. Failure to comply would result in getting dragged into a lawsuit, as Novartis has recently for its webpage.
Bank of America and Visa have announced a joint plan to trial a smartphone payment system to make purchases in the New York area starting next month. While this technology has been used for some time in countries such as Japan, it would be the first time that this technology has been implemented in the US on this basis. The system like others would rely on small NFC (near field communications) chips in smartphones.
The planned smartphone payment system being developed by AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile in the US will soon begin field tests, according to unofficial reports. BusinessWeek says AT&T and Verizon, along with minority partner T-Mobile, are said to be testing the system in Austin, Minneapolis and Salt Lake City. The project is code-named Mercury, with a pilot due to start in the middle of 2011.
Three of the larger US carriers are developing a smartphone-based alternative to a traditional credit or debit payment, sources claimed on Monday. AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon are developing a Near Field Communication system like Japan's FeliCa. Buyers would swipe a phone with an NFC chip near a reader to pay for goods at stores rather than use a card.
Visa will soon allow iPhone owners to make wireless credit card payments at special terminals, a quickly-pulled press release suggests. The concept involves customized payment software called Visa payWave, which will come pre-installed on a memory card. Because the iPhone lacks an external memory slot of its own, the card will require an iPhone to have a new protective case, already said to be Apple-certified.
Nokia has began shipping its 5800 Navigation Edition handset in the US, after introducing it earlier this summer. The touchscreen device includes lifetime voice-guided navigation information for all of North America and ships with a car mount kit. Ovi Maps provides the guidance and also offers navigation help for pedestrians.
Google and Cisco are among the top companies being considered to be entered into the Dow Jones industrial average index, bumping GM and Citigroup, whose shares have recently dipped below $2 and threatened their status as blue chip stocks, or sure things in the investment world, says a Monday report. They are not alone, however, as Apple, US Steel, Goldman Sachs, Visa, Aflac and Northern Trust are other candidates, as chosen by Reuters. Likewise, analysts believe Citigroup and GM are just the most likely companies to be replaced from the Dow index. Four other stocks listed on the Dow have fallen to below $10.
The list of supporters for the Symbian Foundation is set to grow yet again, with credit card company Visa, British chip designer ARM, Chinese technology group Huawei and nine other, unnamed companies planning on joining the group to get access to its software, according to a Tuesday Reuters report. The Symbian Foundation, a not-for-profit group started by cellphone maker Nokia to promote the Symbian operating system for mobile devices, is growing and includes all the major mobile phone makers, giving it an edge over rival Google and its upcoming Android operating system.
