The new agreement for more than $59 million is meant to help extend smartphone money in Europe.
Visa is now predicting that by the year 2020, over half of the transactions that are made by consumers in Europe will be done through mobile payments, so it is continuing to invest in this channel so that it will remain at the heart of this type of transaction.
This is only one of several deals that Visa is currently making to stay central to this industry.
The mobile payments partnership between Visa and Monitise is only the latest in the credit card giant’s efforts in this direction. It involves an extension of the mobile money deal which will have Visa Europe licensing all of the technology from Monitise. So far, the companies are predicting that this will generate $59 million (€45 million) over the next three years. A spokesperson added “with greater revenues as certain user generated thresholds are achieved”.
Visa is also taking an additional step into the mobile payments environment with another investment.
As a minority shareholder in Monitise, Visa is also took the opportunity to make a larger investment into Monitise, adding approximately $23.5 million (£15.6 million).
Visa and Monitise first started working together in February 2011. It added to the partnership by making this licensing deal in June of that year, when Fundamo was purchased for its mobile payment solutions for emerging markets. They have been working together to offer smartphone banking technology and solutions to financial institutions currently numbering 3,000 banks within 36 nations.
In Europe, there are currently 466 million accounts through Visa, and that company has calculated that out of every €6.75 spent on that continent, €1 was processed through Visa services.
Monitise also received a mobile payments investment from Visa in August 2012 worth around £2.1 million. Today, Visa owns approximately 7.5 percent of that company. Within the current investment, once it has been finalized, Visa Europe will have the ability to purchase 43 million ordinary shares of the company for 1 pence each, where the ordinary share price is currently sitting at about 36.25p.
