Vodafone Wallet Branches out to Enable Bank Cards

vodafone mobile walletVodafone customers will soon be able to link their bank cards to the networks mobile wallet service and use their phones for contactless payments, following agreements between the company and financial firms Visa and Carta Worldwide.

The expanded service will be rolled out in European markets starting in Q2 2015, and will require compatible Android phones to be using a Vodafone NFC SIM. Users will be able to input multiple cards, each of which will be stored using an alias in the SIM.

Once users have confirmed ownership of the cards using Verified by Visa authentication, they will be able to pay simply by tapping their phone against contactless point-of-sale terminals, as well as check their mobile payment transaction history via their phone.”We are really excited to bring this new payment service together with Vodafone, which will enable Visa credit and debit cards to be used for mobile contactless payments,” said Jeremy Nicholds, executive director of mobile at Visa Europe. “This initiative is part of Visas strategy to accelerate mobile payments and make it easier for banks to enable their cards to make payments on mobile phones and for consumers to pay in the most secure and convenient way.””We are thrilled to partner with Vodafone to make mobile payments the most simple, convenient and secure way to pay,” said Brian Semkiw, CEO of Carta Worldwide, which provided the payment card enabling technology.”Our Next Generation platform is built to provide the highest security and reliability standards. At the same time, the flexibility of our platform has allowed us to develop this innovative service with Vodafone in record time.”