Visa launches NFC payment dongle for iPhone
Payment card company Visa is partnering with DeviceFidelity to roll out a NFC payment tool that plugs into the dock of the iPhone to turn the handset into a payment device.
The solution, which has been certified by Apple, was developed in collaboration with Visa and uses a protective case that is designed to stay permanently attached to the iPhone and which provides a micro USB slot for users to sync and charge their devices. Users then simply insert a standard In2Pay MicroSD card into the case and can then use their iPhone to make payments at merchants equipped to accept contactless payments. Trials are scheduled to start during the second quarter of 2010.
“The more than 200,000 apps on the App Store are an integral part of iPhone users’ lives,” says Amitaabh Malhotra, COO of DeviceFidelity. “With our In2Pay solution, we want to give both iPhone users and app developers the power to do even more, by putting the convenience of interactive secure mobile transactions, right at their fingertips, anywhere they are.”
“Visa is working to bring the security and convenience of digital currency to mobile users around the world,” adds Dave Wentker, head of mobile contactless payments at Visa. “Our collaboration with DeviceFidelity can extend the reach of Visa mobile payments to millions of iPhone users.”
Visa announced in February that it would be running a number of field trials using DeviceFidelity’s MicroSD technology from the second quarter of this year and the Apple one was actually announced two weeks ago before the press release was inexplicably pulled.
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Let’s be clear: VISA did not launch the payment dongle, VISA only collaborated with DeviceFidelity to allow and certify a product using their payWave platform, available since 2007. Apple’s role is even less: Apple has a development program, called made for iPhone, allowing add-on product development using the dock connector. Apple has no specific affinity with this payment device, other than certifying the hardware and the application, as it happens in the AppStore thousand times a day. Of course we all cheering up so see the NFC cause is finally making progress after many years of struggle and not be able to present a viable profitable business case.
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