Visa is accelerating its efforts to dominate the mobile payment space, Reuters reported on Monday. Visa is no stranger to mobile payments. It began trialing an iPhone NFC payment solution in Europe early this year, has plans to work with Samsung on a system for the 2012 Olympics, and recently announced that it has partnered with ISIS for the development of a mobile payment network in the United States. “As mobile payments and other chip-based emerging technologies are poised to take off in the coming years, we are taking steps today to create a commercial framework that will support growth opportunities,” Visa’s global head of product Jim McCarty told Reuters.
141.1 million people around the world will make mobile payments this year, a 38.2% increase from last year, Gartner said in a new report issued on Friday. Global mobile payment volume is expected to hit $86.1 billion in 2011, up 75.9% from the $48.9 billion recorded last year. Gartner says mobile payments are not growing as fast as originally projected due to slower than expected uptake in developing countries. In addition, the “complexity of the [NFC]” service model has impeded its ability to takeoff in developed countries. “The biggest hurdle is the need to change user behavior by convincing consumers to pay with mobile phones instead of cash and cards,” Gartner research director Sandy Shen said, noting that mass market adoption of near-field communications (NFC) is at least four years away. Mobile payments will be driven by prepaid top-ups and money transfers, the research firm said. “Thanks to the success of mobile application stores, such as Apple’s App Store, and the efforts in driving mobile sales by major retailers, such as Amazon and eBay, merchandise purchases far outweigh other use cases in developed markets, which include North America and Western Europe,” Shen said. “We predict that in 2011, merchandise purchases will account for 90 percent and 77 percent of all transactions in North America and Western Europe, respectively.” Read on for the full press release.
Night Hawk Computers Blackberry Alliance 