Visa NFC mobile wallet in August?

Visa NFC mobile wallet in August? Maybe, if rumors pan out. Way back in May of this year Visa announced that it would launch its own NFC mobile wallet in the fall of this year. At the time it released a press release with a smattering of banks that would support the new NFC mobile wallet. Barclaycard US, BB&T Corporation, Card Services for Unions (CSCU), ICBA Bancard, First Financial Bank of Ohio, Nordstrom fsb, Pentagon Federal Credit Union, PNC Bank, PSCU Financial Services, Regions Bank, Royal Bank of Canada, Scotiabank, TD Bank Group (US and Canada) and US Bank had all signed on to bring Visa’s dream of its own NFC mobile wallet into the realms of reality.

“Our new solutions deliver greater consumer choice, convenience and control while helping our clients grow their businesses. By helping to reduce abandoned online shopping carts and bringing new account holders into the Visa network, we create a win-win-win for merchants, consumers and financial institutions,” noted Joseph W. Saunders, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Visa Inc. “In addition, we believe Visa’s new payments products and services will help expand financial inclusion to the billions of mobile subscribers today who currently lack access to traditional financial services.”

A reminder of the features the Visa NFC mobile wallet would have

By all accounts, the Visa NFC mobile wallet will be all encompassing with features that seem comparable to what we found in Margento’s wallet products, but note they are not all NFC based.

• Click-to-buy: Shop conveniently and securely by simply entering an email address, alias or online ID and password, instead of a billing address, account number and expiration date. In addition, Visa is exploring dynamic authentication technologies that will bring added layers of security to online purchases.
• Cross-channel payments solution: The wallet consolidates multiple Visa and non-Visa payments accounts and can be used in mobile, e-Commerce, social network and retail point-of-sale environments.
• Preference management: A menu that enables consumers to set preferences for how their wallet will work, allowing them to customize and control the features of their personal wallet from privacy settings to designating which account will be accessed based on merchant type or purchase amount.
• Merchant offers: A service that allows consumers to personalize their shopping experience by opting into receiving money-saving discounts or promotions from participating merchants.

“The widespread adoption of Internet and mobile technology is changing the way people connect and transact across the globe, so we’re focused on delivering locally tailored payments products and services,” said Saunders. “We are introducing new solutions for eCommerce and mobile devices that provide the same ‘Visa-quality’ experience convenience, reliability and NFC mobile wallet security people enjoy when using their Visa cards at a retail location. In doing so, we are accelerating the global shift to digital payments by harnessing our brand, products, network and 50-plus years of payments experience.”

What else do we know about the Visa NFC mobile wallet?

We know Isis has just made its big announcement, we know that Google Wallet goes live soon for Nexus S users on Sprint and we know that Microsoft is building its own solution. This puts pressure on Visa to come to market quickly to capitalize on the inertia in the industry and in the public imagination. If Apple or PayPal launches some form of NFC mobile wallet in the fall, this would also fragment the market further. Because of this fragmentation, it would again be better for Visa to get a head start. In the press release, we know that Visa is also aiming its Visa NFC mobile wallet at emerging economies so we can probably count on some NFC sticker action to retro fit dumb phones. It wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine they haveNFC mobile wallet iOS , Android, WP7 and BlackBerry apps in the making either, which would form the basis of the Visa NFC mobile wallet here in the States. Visa has also stated it will deploy tablet solutions. We know that Visa acquired fundamo, which enables the delivery of mobile financial services to unbanked and under-banked consumers around the world, including person-to-person payment, airtime top-up, bill payment and branchless NFC mobile wallet banking services, and we should probably expect those features to be built in also.

Some larger banking organizations are yet to announce their plans and could well use Visa as their NFC mobile wallet and TSM. If the rumors are true, we can probably expect Visa to launch a very robust product of its own in August with all the trappings of NFC payments, person-to-person payments, offers, account management and so on. We also think that Visa may have some larger financial organizations who have signed up with the card issuer up its sleeve that it will try to keep hush to make a bigger splash with to launch the Visa NFC mobile wallet next month.