Mobile payments dominate agenda as rivals line up plans
MOBILE payments were top of the agenda at Mobile World Congress yesterday, with the telecoms industry’s biggest players scrabbling to become the gatekeepers to consumer spending.
Vodafone announced a tie-up with Visa to allow customers to pay for goods by swiping their phones instead of paying by card or cash.
The scheme, which will be available to all of Vodafone’s 400m consumer base, will be the biggest of its kind in the world. It will initially be pre-payment only – rather than linked directly to a current account – and will launch in the UK this year. O2 owner Telefonica has been working with Visa on a similar system.
Vodafone chief executive Vittorio Colao said his company’s scheme will become the standard if the technology is the best: “It’s all about competition,” he said. “Consumers will decide.”
Another project was announced yesterday by US players AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, who will partner with Chase, Capital One and Barclaycard to offer a mobile payment system to compete with Google Wallet.
Google’s Eric Schmidt will talk at MWC today but City A.M. understands he will not give more details about the rollout of Google Wallet in Europe.