Vodafone wallet to accept contactless card payments

Vodafone customers will soon be able to add bank cards to their Vodafone Wallet and use smartphones to pay for goods and services at contactless terminals. Following new agreements with Visa and Carta Worldwide, contactless card payments via Vodafone Wallet will be enabled in European markets from Q2 2015 onwards.

This service, which requires a Vodafone NFC SIM, will be supported on a wide range of

Vodafone wallet to accept contactless card payments

Android smartphones. To use the service, customers will:

• input their bank cards to the Vodafone Wallet app, where an alias of each card is stored securely in the Vodafone NFC SIM;
• confirm ownership of the card using Verified by Visa authentication;
• pay by tapping their phones against a contactless point-of-sale terminal; and
• check their mobile payment transaction history using their phones, wherever they are.

Payments are automatically debited from the selected bank cards, which are protected with a user-defined 4-digit PIN for higher value payments.

Mark Ritzmann, Head of mCommerce at Vodafone Group said: “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.”

“We are really excited to bring this new payment service together with Vodafone, which will enable Visa credit and debit cards to be used for mobile contactless payments,” continues Jeremy Nicholds, Executive Director Mobile at Visa Europe.

“This initiative is part of Visa’s strategy to accelerate mobile payments and make it easier for banks to enable their cards to make payments on mobile phones and for consumers to pay in the most secure and convenient way.”

Vodafone Wallet is currently available in Germany, Spain, the UK, Italy and The Netherlands. Customers can already add loyalty cards into the Vodafone Wallet, as well as pay with Vodafone SmartPass that was launched in partnership with  Visa in 2013.  This evolution of the Vodafone Wallet is part of the Vodafone mCommerce strategy designed to provide a mobile alternative to coins, banknotes and plastic cards.

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