Visa is entering the mobile commerce arena with its recently unveiled plans to develop a mobile wallet to compete with Google’s offering. Visa, the global payments technology powerhouse, is joining the growing number of tech and financial companies pushing the world toward a cashless society.
Visa’s payment platform will make use of NFC technology, as is the norm for such endeavors, but the company seems to have been developing their mobile wallet for some time. Despite only recently revealing their plans to release such a product, Visa has announced that their Digital Wallet will be available this fall.
NFC is the key to mobile commerce, according to Visa and several other companies investing in the burgeoning industry. The technology relies heavily on mobile devices, in this case transforming them into a contactless payment platform. Given the popularity of smart phones, NFC has had no trouble finding adoption amongst consumers.
“The widespread adoption of this technology is changing the way people connect and transact across the globe,” says Joseph Saunders, Visa’s chairman and CEO. In a statement released yesterday, Saunders says that Visa will be tailoring their Digital Wallet to better facilitate local businesses in communities throughout the world.
Visa is emerging as one of the top competitors in the field of mobile commerce and may be one of the few capable of challenging Google’s tightening grip on the industry. Time will tell.
