DAILY

MONEY NEWS
Visa, Samsung
in global NFC
alliance
By Richard Handford
Visa is joining forces with
Samsung in an alliance that
is designed to encourage the
take-up of mobile payments via
NFC-based smartphones.
Financial institutions planning to
launch m-payments services can use
a new Visa service that securely
downloads user’s account information
to NFC- based Samsung handsets.
The alliance will also place Visa
payWave applets on Samsung’s
next generation of NFC-based
mobile devices. The applets enable
consumers to make contactless
payments in locations such as
shops and restaurants.
Visa’s global head of product, Jim
McCarthy, said “the key to making
mobile payments broadly available
all over the world” is offering
financial institutions “a secure way
to provision millions of smartphones
with payment account information”.
The new service is called the Visa
Mobile Provisioning Service.
Visa is in discussions with banks
interested in its service but would
not reveal any names.
Dr Won-Pyo Hong, Samsung’s
president and head of its media
solution center, said the partnership
with Visa “represents a step towards
a global mobile payment platform”.
The partners claim the alliance is “a
first of its kind” between a NFC
HEALTH NEWS
PAGE 14
handset vendor and payment network.
The arrangement is non-exclusive
so Visa could strike similar deals with
rival vendors (or Samsung could
team up with other credit card firms).
Samsung will offer banks the
ability to load payment account
information over the air to a secure
chip embedded in its devices, using
Visa’s new provisioning service.
The service is linked to Samsung’s
KMS, or key management system,
that creates secure data storage
domains for card issuers.
The Visa payWave applet will be
preloaded onto selected Samsung
mobile devices featuring NFC and
an embedded secure element.
When purchased, these devices
are ready to be personalised with
Visa-based payment accounts, which
consumers will do with an app
provided by their financial institution.
How this new alliance fits with
Visa’s existing relationships with
mobile operators will be interesting.
At last year’s congress, it announced
a payments partnership with
Vodafone across the operator’s
extensive global footprint. Visa also
unveiled an alliance with Orange at
last year’s event, although it focused
on payments in emerging markets.
Although the current alliance is
slated as being global, NFC-based
handsets are usually targeted at
wealthier markets in Europe and
Asia, as well as the US.
Visa could use the same service
provisioning mechanism to work
with other industry sectors, for
instance transport or home security.
Visa will demonstrate its PayWave
applet and new provisioning service
during congress.
By Richard Handford
Recent research by handset
vendor Doro found that half
of respondents aged over 65
are happy with a featurephone, but
what the other half want is a
smartphone.
In response, the vendor, which
specialises in handsets for older users,
is attempting to cover both preferences
in its latest device – a featurephone that
uses cloud-based technology.
The Doro PhoneEasy 622 is
powered by the company’s remote
device management tool which
enables its content and settings to
be controlled from a secure online
portal by the user, or their family
and friends.
Vimpelcom,
MasterCard
in mobile
money push
By Richard Handford
Vimpelcom is teaming up with
MasterCard to offer mobile
money services to subscribers
across its extensive footprint.
The aim is to offer a range of
money services for both Vimpelcom’s
banked subscribers and those without
access to conventional bank services.
The operator, which has 212
million subscribers in 18 countries,
covers a diverse spectrum of markets
including Russia, Italy, Ukraine as
well as markets in Asia and Africa.
The partners will first launch a prepaid
money service to subscribers of
Wind Italy by working with CartaLis,
a local financial institution. This
service will be offered later in 2013.
Vimpelcom did not offer a
rollout schedule for mobile money
in other markets.
By Anne Morris
NXP Semiconductors is
showcasing new contactless
applications at Mobile World
Congress this week, as the company
continues to build on technologies
such as NFC and MIFARE.
New applications being
demonstrated in Barcelona include
Half of over-65s want a
smartphone – survey
Contacts can be added to an
online address book from a PC and
pushed to the handset. And photos
from the handset can be backed up
on-line.
Doro describes the new device as
its highest level feature phone to
date which includes ability such as
video record and playback, as well
as a weather app on the
homescreen,
The handset has a clamshell
design with an outside screen for
caller identification. Also included
are amplified sounds that use
wideband audio technology,
adjustable text size, a large and bright
screen, intuitive menus and the
option to hide certain functions, so
the user can customise the device.
The kind of services the operator
will offer include money transfer
between individual subscribers, bill
payments from a mobile device and
mobile commerce.
In addition, the credit card giant
announced it is to pilot a mobile
payment acceptance service in
Kenya with the local Equity Bank
and Ezetap, a device vendor.
The pilot enables retailers to accept
credit, debit or pre-paid card payments
via a dongle that is fitted onto a
standard smartphone or tablet. It offers
cash-only retailers the opportunity to
also accept card payments.
MasterCard says this is the first
time such a service has been
offered in Kenya. It was announced
in mid-January.
Kenya has a distinct history in
mobile payments because of M-
Pesa, the innovative money transfer
service pioneered by Safaricom, the
country’s dominat mobile operator.
Ezetap’s service, which has been
operational in India for several
months, consists of a dongle that
plugs into mobile devices, as well as
an app. Such services have been
widely deployed in other markets
around the world.
NXP expands contactless stall
a mobile ticketing solution called
MIFARE4MOBILE that allows
NFC-enabled smartphones to be
used for ticketing applications on
transport systems. NXP said more
than 650 contactless transport
systems around the world are based
on its MIFARE technology.
Others include the tag-based NFC
Shopping solution developed by
Think&Go NFC that is currently
being used in Casino supermarkets in
France, and a smart wireless charging
pad that uses NFC to trigger “wake
up,” thereby achieving true-zero
power consumption in standby mode.
The company added that OEMs
have currently selected NXP’s NFC
technology for approximately 200
mobile devices.
A smartph
on e
tha
hat t conn
ec ects
to
You
Tee
st
and
track
k y your
health
and
well-being
www.lifewatchV.com
www.
lifewatchV.
com
HHall
al
l 5 B BBooth
ooth
BB100
100
Tuesday 26th February MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS DAILY 2013 | www.mobileworldcongress.com