Visa International has taken its Visa Wave contactless card payment technology to the next level with the launch of the world’s first Mobile Visa Wave Payment pilot programme in Malaysia. Visa, Malayan Banking Bhd, Maxis Communications Bhd and Nokia have collaborated to provide the mobile payment system facility to Maybankard Visa cardholders and Maxis mobile phone subscribers. Two hundred participants, who are both Maybankard Visa cardholders and Maxis subscribers, were picked for the four-month trial. Visa country manager for Malaysia Jeffrey Perera said it was a natural progression to incorporate the Visa Wave technology into mobile phones for payment convenience. Speaking at the launch in Petaling Jaya on April 27, he said the Mobile Visa Wave Payment system combined “near field communications” (NFC) with Visa Wave contactless card technologies, built on the success of the existing contactless card platform. Maxis head of products and new businesses Dr Nikolai Dobberstein said it had not finalised the charges for the service since the rate is different from short messaging service. Nokia’s head of NFC consumer solutions Risto Sipila said other mobile phone manufacturers could introduce similar technology so that consumers would have a wider choice of handsets and pricing would be competitive. Perera said more than 160,000 Visa Wave cards were issued in Malaysia by five banks. “We target 600,000 cards by end-2006. We also aim to increase the number of contactless card readers from 2,500 now to 7,500 by year-end,” he said. Payments by Mobile Visa Wave are done via NFC, using radio frequency much like those used in mass transit environments. Cardholders hold the mobile phones at about 4cm from the specially installed payment reader for the transaction to be processed. In Malaysia, the pilot Maybankard Visa Wave-enabled phone operates as a standard mobile phone connected to the Maxis network and can be used to wave and pay wherever a Visa Wave sign is displayed. -theedgedaily
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