Visa Inks Deals with Samsung, Roam for ‘Ready Partner’ Program (Feb. 25, 2013)
Feb. 25, 2013
Aiming to speed up development of mobile payment technologies, Visa Inc. on the eve of this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona announced the Visa Ready Partner Program, a framework it hopes will make it easier for mobile device manufacturers, mobile network operators and various of their technology partners around the world to bring mobile payment products to market. And today Visa announced that Samsung, which already commands a strong market share in NFC-ready smartphones, will be its first global NFC partner. Samsung will include Visa’s payWave contactless payment technology into new NFC devices it manufactures, Visa said. Visa also said Ingenico’s Roam has joined its Ready Partner program and will soon include Visa’s card payment acceptance solutions in mobile point-of-sale hardware it sells.
Because Visa’s requirements for developing mobile payments vary by country, Visa’s new program is designed to simplify the process of gaining its approval for mobile NFC-enabled devices, as well as “streamlining” the compliance testing process for mobile NFC devices to accelerate NFC product development. To advance the initiative, Visa will make its technology documentation and resources available to developers, including opening its application program interface (API) and software development kits to developers creating mobile POS solutions in “select markets” to connect to Visa via payment gateways, including Visa’s CyberSource and Authorize.Net. Visa has created a “Visa Ready” symbol to identify all such devices and solutions it approves.
The deal with Samsung should significantly boost NFC adoption in markets where paying with mobile devices is “becoming commonplace,” said Jim McCarthy, Visa’s global head of product. For Samsung, the partnership “represents a step toward a global mobile payment platform,” said Dr. Won-Pyo Hong, Samsung’s president and head of media solution center.
