Vodafone has inked a new agreement with Visa and Carta Worldwide to enable bank card payments via its Vodafone Wallet service in European markets, from the second quarter of 2015. The new service which requires a Vodafone NFC SIM will allow Vodafone customers to add bank cards to their Vodafone Wallet and use smartphones to pay for goods and services at contactless terminals. The service will kick-off on Android smartphones, said the company.
According to Vodafone, the Vodafone Wallet app enables bank card payments by storing an alias for each card in the Vodafone NFC SIM and by using the Verified authentication from Visa to validate the ownership of each stored card.
Vodafone Wallet is currently available in Germany, Spain, the UK, Italy and the Netherlands. The Vodafone Wallet already offers a range of mobile commerce facilitiation including the ability to add loyalty cards and use the Vodafone SmartPass that was launched in partnership with Visa in 2013 to make payments via mobile devices. Vodafone added that the recent addition of bank cards to its wallet and the continuous evolution of the service is part of the Vodafone mCommerce strategy designed to provide a mobile alternative to coins, banknotes and plastic cards.
The digital wallet just took another step forward. With a few clicks, customers will be able to add payment cards to their Vodafone Wallet and use Android smartphones to pay at contactless terminals. Thanks to our agreements with Visa and Carta Worldwide, using bank cards stored on Vodafone Wallet is fast, secure and simple.
Brian Semkiw, CEO of Carta WorldwideTiVo
We are thrilled to partner with Vodafone to make mobile payments the most simple, convenient and secure way to pay. 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.
