Visa Europe has added Multi-currency and Immediate Payments functions to its Visa Personal Payments mobile service.

Personal Payments is a person-to-person payment service that enables anyone with a Visa card to send money to another Visa cardholder using just their phone number or card number.

The addition of Immediate Payments, which launches in the UK this week with other markets to follow later in the year, makes it possible to receive money sent via Visa Personal Payments in less than 30 minutes.

Multi-Currency, which will be available by the end of 2013, allows payments to be sent and received across borders and currencies in Europe.

“Mobile payments have the potential to fundamentally change the way that people pay and are paid,” said Visa Europe SVP Sandra Alzetta. “The new Multi-Currency and Immediate Payments features combine the convenience of mobile device use with the ability to send money to 460m Visa cardholders across Europe, solving a problem that millions of consumers face every day – giving money to another individual easily and securely.”

Visa Personal Payments powers the money transfer app launched by RBS and NatWest last month, which saw 1.7m downloads in the first two weeks following release.

Visa says it has currently 17 live and committed issuers signed up across Europe.

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