Vodafone and Visa agree mobile payment strategy partnership
A partnership between mobile communications company Vodafone and payment organisation Visa has been announced all the will allow consumers to user their mobile phones to pay for goods.
The agreement will see the companies collaborate in the development of a Vodafone branded offering targeting its 398-million customers across 30 countries, that will be serviced by Visa’s payment network.
The proposition will be based on the Visa prepaid account, and will initially launch in Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Turkey, and the UK, at some stage this financial year, before rolling out elsewhere.
Vittorio Colao, group CEO of Vodafone, said: "The Vodafone mobile wallet represents the next stage of the smartphone revolution. It offers our customers the speed, simplicity and convenience of managing their everyday transactions with a single wave or tap of their smartphone,using innovative and reliable services developed by Vodafone and Visa - technology and providers they can trust. Our mobile wallet will be open to any service provider and we are committed to enable all partners to provide our joint customers the richest service portfolio possible."
Peter Ayliffe, CEO of Visa Europe, added: "Our partnership with Vodafone represents a huge stride forward for mobile payments. Visa's future of payments initiative is more than just a promise: these services are real, tangible and coming to the mainstream consumer market in the very near future. Any Visa Issuer across these key markets will be able to work with Visa and Vodafone to enable mobile payments for their customers, backed by all the security, trust and global acceptance the Visa brand represents.
"The convergence of global payment networks, such as VisaNet, with leading mobile telecommunication networks, such as Vodafone, has the potential to transform the way people pay and get paid the world over," said John Partridge, President, Visa Inc. "Visa's relationship with Vodafone will assist financial institutions in both developed and developing countries to offer Visa-quality payments to new and existing account holders."