Digital wallet to be launched this fall by Visa
Visa has made announcements regarding the launch of its own ‘Digital Wallet’ during this fall in Canada and US. This will offer click-to-buy payments on online purchases and mobile purchases based on Near-Field Communications (NFC) which is an inbuilt feature in a number of Smartphone.
The main aim in introducing this system is to offer the ‘Visa’ experience in mobile as well as online commerce by providing customers with a sense of reliability and security that they would get from their present offerings on their Visa accounts and point-of-sale service.
Joseph Saunders, Chairman and CEO, Visa, has stated that their new solutions will help in giving consumers a greater choice, control, and convenience while helping in the growth of businesses for their clients. By bringing new account holders into the Visa fold and by reducing the abandoned online shopping carts, they hope to create a win-win situation for consumers, merchants as well as financial institutions.
Visa also plans to localize the mobile wallet service by working with mobile operators as well as financial institutions in various nations, especially the developing nations where there is a rise in credit card issuance as well as mobile subscriptions.
According to Visa, the digital wallet will handle the non-Visa as well as Visa payment accounts along with a range of transactions which include the mobile as well as online commerce, and transactions that are carried out through social networks, micropayments for virtual goods, and person-to-person payments. Visa would also offer support on the NFC transactions through its Visa payWave mobile applications. The click-to-buy function from Visa will require users to just enter their email ID or online ID along with the password. There is no requirement for security codes, account numbers, or expiration dates. Visa also states that it is exploring ‘dynamic authentication technologies’ in order to make online purchases more secure. There would be privacy settings for users on these digital wallets and it would also have controls that would enable customers to gain control over the accounts that are accessed based on the retailer or the purchase amount. Visa will also be pushing certain special offers through the merchants that would enable users to have an option to receive discounts and promotional offers from participating merchants.
However, for the digital wallet to gain momentum the company has to convince online retailers as well as websites to adopt the click-to-buy functions. The company is very optimistic with regard to its growth potential.
