Visa Europe to launch Visa Wallet for NFC payments in August 2012

Visa Europe to launch Visa Wallet for NFC payments in August 2012

Visa announced that its NFC payments Visa Wallet would be coming this fall in the United States, but it now appears that Visa Europe won’t roll out its version until either August or September 2012. Steve Perry, Commercial Director for Visa Europe, confirmed the deployment of Europe’s Visa Wallet at the European security summit in Frankfurt. Details are thin on the ground at the moment about Visa’s European Visa Wallet, but Perry did share some interesting tidbits that shed light on how Visa intends to take a different approach than what might have been expected of the company when it comes to NFC payments and its Visa Wallet offering that we may well see built into the American version.

Visa Wallet to take on all other NFC mobile wallets

Google Wallet is already in the market and Visa has now supported Google Wallet, so we can expect to see Visa accounts built in within the next few months. However, Visa has always maintained that it is in co-opertition with third party NFC mobile wallets like the Google Wallet or the upcoming Isis NFC mobile wallet. In an interesting twist that was reported by Pocket-Lint, and one we feel may give Visa a competitive advantage over other card issuing companies, Visa intends to support competitors’ cards like AMEX, Discover and MasterCard, Perry announced.

“It will work with not just Visa cards from multiple banks, but other cards like American Express,” Perry told the delegates. He also added, “If the digital wallet isn’t as sexy as my current wallet, then it won’t take off.” This only goes to show how aware Visa is of how it must make its Visa Wallet a benefit to consumers. NFC payments are now starting to take off and Visa is likely to start pushing more services through their current apps which will offer person-to-person payments in the near term. With a global view, both Visa and MasterCard are ubiquitous and where as we see Visa as a credit card company, they are increasingly viewing themselves as a technology company.

The European Visa Wallet will have to handle multiple currencies in multiple countries. Visa plans to add more currencies to its Visa Wallet in the near future, which will give Europeans the ability to use the Visa Wallet everywhere in Europe. The final interesting piece of information that Visa shared was that the company had conducted research and believe that NFC mobile payments will outnumber traditional credit card purchases within ten years which only goes to show why the NFC mobile wallet wars are gearing up for a bloody showdown now as everyone aims to take their piece of the pie and struggle for control. We should be hearing more about the US Visa Wallet within the next few weeks and can probably expect to be making NFC payments by the holidays with the expected onslaught of NFC phones that are expected to launch within the next month or two.