Turkish bank Akbank TAS is hoping to bring contactless mobile payments to its customers through a partnership agreement announced this week with Visa Europe.
Visa Inc. in February announced it is using DeviceFidelity Inc.’s In2Pay microSD chip technology to support its mobile contactless-payment initiatives (
A representative from Akbank was unable to comment on the partnership by PaymentsSource deadline.
The microSD chip works only in Blackberry handsets, but Visa Europe says work toward compatibility with phones from HTC Corp., Samsung Electronics Inc., LG Electronics, Nokia Corp. and Motorola Inc. is under way.
Visa and Device Fidelity also are developing a version for Apple’s iPhone that includes a sleeve with a memory card slot that fits over the phone (
It seems appropriate that Visa would want to launch this product in Turkey because the country “has been leading in emerging payment technologies for a number of years,” Todd Ablowitz, president of Double Diamond Group, a Centennial, Colo.-based consulting firm, tells PaymentsSource. “Contactless readers are probably more common, and consumers will most likely know how to use and understand the technology,” Ablowitz adds.
Since the spring, “over 1 million contactless Visa payment cards have been issued in Turkey with 19 commercial card programs, Mary Carol Harris, Visa Europe head of mobile, tells PaymentsSource. Harris, however, did not say how many contactless terminals merchants deploy are in the country.
Visa Europe contends the microSD chip helps to bridge the gap until handsets equipped with Near Field Communication chips are available. NFC chips enable two-way communication with other NFC chips to support the downloading of information as well, such coupons or reward points.
But a number of other factors also should be considered before mobile payments becomes mainstream, such as contactless-payment acceptance, Harris says.
Once consumers fully accept mobile phones as a payment device, Visa Europe plans to extend the service to include online shopping, payment tracking and person-to-person funds transfers, she adds.
Over the past two years, Visa Europe has reached out to other markets to test such mobile services as payments, text message transaction alerts, merchant offers and funds transfers, Harris adds. Other Visa Europe mobile-payment projects are taking place in Finland, France, Italy, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, she notes.
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