An agreement between Vodafone Italia and CartaSi SpA will result in what the companies call one of the first prepaid debit cards in Italy to support both online and contactless in-store payments through a smartphone, Vodafone announced Dec. 1.
Linked to a Vodafone mobile account, the Vodafone Smart Pass will enable consumers to use the cards to pay at cash registers using Near Field Communication, Alessandra Acutis, a Vodafone Italia spokesperson, told PaymentsSource through an email.
When the product launches within two weeks throughout Italy, Smart Pass cardholders may purchase products online by entering their card data at merchant website checkout pages or by linking the card data through a Vodafone application to online merchants with a Vodafone smartphone, Acutis said.
If a retailer’s terminal supports NFC payment, the Smart Pass user could complete a contactless tap-and-go purchase, she added. With other systems, the Smart Pass user could complete a chip-and-PIN transaction.
Consumers would load funds into the card account through the Vodafone account. Smart Pass operates at the registers at all 900 Vodafone shops and online through the Vodafone smartphone. Such major retailers as McDonald’s Corp., Italian supermarket chain Esselunga and bookshop chain La Feltrinelli will accept the payment card, Vodafone stated in a press release.
People’s Bank Institute in Italy will issue the MasterCard-branded prepaid card as part of a cooperative effort with Vodafone Italia, an Italy-based subsidiary of United Kingdom-based Vodafone Group PLC, and CartaSi, a credit and prepaid card issuer based in Milan.
The card links to the cardholder’s Vodafone phone number to allow mobile payments. Registered users of the Vodafone You loyalty points program link to the card to earn points usable toward extra minutes on the phone account, the company stated.
Vodafone Group has embraced various mobile-payment ventures, including one in August involving subsidiary Vodafone Germany D2 GmbH (
In addition, Vodafone Germany joined other telecommunication companies to form a new company to handle mass-transit mobile payments in Germany (
Zil Bareisis, a London-based senior analyst for research firm Celent, tells PaymentsSource the Vodafone Smart Pass is similar to the “Orange Cash” concept in the UK.
Mobile phone issuer Orange UK worked with Barclaycard and MasterCard Worldwide in May to establish a prepaid card account with a mobile phone account offering mobile-related rewards and perks (
The Vodafone Smart Pass represents a good first step for Vodafone and Italian consumers toward full mobile payments, Bareisis suggests. “It gets their customers used to contactless and prepaid wallet concepts, both of which will come in handy when launching NFC-based mobile payments,” he adds.
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