Visa is going all out against cash driving the adoption of mobile payment services. In Europe Visa expects that over 50 million contactless payments will be made each month by years end. Head of Visa’s mobile business Sandra Alzetta expects a wave of NFC enabled smartphones from smartphone and tablet makers such as Samsung, HTC and LG. The European versions will ship with Visa’s mobile PayWave and Mobile wallet services driving their growth in mobile payment services.
Although plastic has worked well in the past, a new era of mobile devices is driving plastic and cash out while ushering in mobile payments with smartphone and tablet devices. Smartphones and tablets are personal devices and people tend to always have them anywhere they go in the case of smartphones. Tablets are increasing in use in enterprise computing but also in mobile POS uses. Tablets or phones can run a point of sale application and see inventory levels, product details and even close the sale with a credit card reader and receipt printer. Something plastic can’t exactly do.
As smartphone users grow more comfortable using NFC payment devices credit cards are being left behind and instead the digital wallet is closing the deal. A wide range of smartphones and tablets are already shipping with near field communications or NFC. An area expected to increase adoption of NFC payments is with bank to bank transfers where end users can exchange currency among one another without the need of a merchant account. Visa and local banks intend to make it easy for their customers to transfer money for funding or splitting collective bills.
The Advantages
- A more advanced point of sale system platform allowing customization with merchant systems easier than traditional POS solutions.
- Mobility – The ability to accept credit card / debit card purchases anywhere the sales person is.
- High level of security to protect credit card data.
- Great complementary service to help merchants enhance their existing payment systems at the point of sale.
- Customizable Point of Sale or mPOS and cash register capabilities to support POS.