Vodafone in smartphone payment tie-up with Visa

Telecoms titan Vodafone has announced a 'worldwide partnership' with global payments giant Visa to allow customers to pay for goods and services using their mobile phones.

The Vodafone-branded proposition will be offered to consumers across its 398m customer base in more than 30 countries, "enabled by Visa's outstanding payment network, product suite and brand," the statement said.

Users will be able to use a Visa pre-paid account to make purchases at the-point-of-sale using Near Field Communications-enabled smartphones equipped with Visa payWave for mobile.

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"By simply waving their smartphone in front of a payment terminal, consumers will be able to make simple, every day purchases such as bus and train tickets, newspapers, magazines or a morning coffee. Consumers will also be able to make high value purchases securely using a passcode," Vodafone said.

"Our partnershipwith Vodafone represents a huge stride forwardfor mobile payments," said Visa Europe's Chief Executive Officer Peter Ayliffe.

"Visa's future of payments initiative is more thanjust a promise: these services arereal, tangible and coming to the mainstream consumer market in the very near future," he said.

The service will be initially launched in German, the Netherland, Spain, Turkey and the UK in the coming financial year.

BC