NFC has plenty of uses aside from mobile payments, however that is often where the topic seems to come back to. There are several solutions such as Google Wallet and ISIS, however neither are widespread in use. Some had thought that Google would have been able to convince people that they needed to be buying things with the swipe of a smartphone, however that doesn’t seem to have happened. Enter the next possibility, Samsung and Visa. These two companies have announced a new partnership in hopes to accelerate NFC-based mobile payments.
This partnership is planning to use “Visa’s expertise in payments and Samsung’s leadership in mobile device technology” in an effort to “significantly accelerate the availability of mobile payments globally.” What this means moving forward — you will begin seeing Samsung devices come pre-loaded with support for Visa payWave payments.
The Visa payWave set-up is pushed as being able to “wave and pay” which really just works like any other NFC payment system in that you hold your phone over the terminal. Samsung and Visa have been talking up the partnership during Mobile World Congress, however we have yet to see any device announcements. Maybe (and according to rumor), we will see something on March 14 when Samsung announces the Galaxy S IV.
As of now we have only seen that the “Visa payWave mobile applet will be preloaded onto selected next-generation Samsung mobile devices.” Some of the selected devices portion will come down to specs. For example, the device will need NFC. The device will also need to feature an embedded secure element. With that, once available on a device, the user will be able to begin using Visa payWave in conjunction with a “mobile payment application provided by their financial institution.”
[via Visa]
