Digital Journal — Within a year, Canadian shoppers can wave a phone at a checkout reader and buy items without dipping into their wallet. A mobile phone payment venture is set to debut in mid-2009 in Toronto, DigitalJournal.com has learned.
Visa and Rogers Wireless are working on creating a pilot program that will see participants using a special Motorola cellphone that can be waved at Visa payWave-enabled checkout readers at select retail store. Visa payWave is already being used by 32,000 retailers in North America, allowing cardholders to wave their plastic in front of a secure reader, no signature required.
Phones will contain Near Field Communication (NFC) contactless chips, and the pilot project will be the first in Canada to test over-the-air delivery of mobile phone software and credit card info to a cellphone.
How would it work? According to Visa, “Gemalto, who currently produce Royal Bank Canada (RBC) Visa chip cards, will manage the transfer of credit card information from RBC to the secure SIM card in the Rogers Wireless NFC-enabled mobile phone, using the same high level of security and encryption used to issue RBC Visa chip cards.”
Mike Bradley, Head of Products, Visa Canada, said in a statement: “Allowing consumers to use their mobile phones to pay with Visa is an innovative new service, and also adds value to retailers, financial institutions and mobile operators.”
People who use this service, in the initial phase, have to be RBC customers. In the future, Visa hopes anyone — no matter their bank — can use mobile payment.
MasterCard is also expected to roll out a similar cellphone payment service, but widespread adoption is contingent on how telecom companies and major banks agree on revenue splits.
