Phones from Samsung, RIM and LG Electronics Certified by for Use in payWave Terminals
Smartphones from Samsung Electronics, Research In Motion and LG Electronics (News - Alert) have recently been added by Visa to their list of devices certified to work with the 185,000 NFC-based payWave payment terminals. These are all terminals that are based in Europe.
All of these certified products will now run Visa's payWave application on a secure SIM card. They will make use of Near Field Communications (NFC). This is a short range communications standard that will help transmit payment related information securely. This information will be passed onto a contactless payment terminal. Samsung Galaxy S II, LG Optimus NET (News 
- Alert) NFC, BlackBerry Bold 9900, BlackBerry Bold 9790, BlackBerry Curve 9360 and BlackBerry Curve 9380 are among the phones that have been certified in this first round.
The benefit of guaranteeing these phones is that they will now meet all of payWave performance and interoperability requirements. Officials from Visa Europe explain that the speed of transaction and the read range of the phone are among just two of the metrics that Visa takes into account as part of the certification.
PayWave is Visa's means to enable wireless payments where the consumer makes use of cards or mobile phones. Purchases can be made by waving a mobile phone in front of a compatible payment terminal. One part of the certification scheme is done jointly by Visa Europe and Visa Inc., which functions in all other parts of the world.
2011 was not really a good year as the progress on mobile payments was rather slow. Visa then signed a license agreement along with Google (News - Alert) and helped make payWave compatible with Google Wallet.
In a release, Mary Carol Harris, Head of Mobile at Visa Europe, said, “Looking forward to the rest of 2012, Visa is optimistic. Mobile payments represent a huge opportunity as the different companies begin to work together to make their promise a reality. 2012 [will be] a crucial step for mobile payment to begin to prove itself in practical, everyday situations and set the scene for a wider mainstream adoption in years to come.”
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Carolyn John is a Contributor to TMCnet. To read more of her articles, please columnist page.Edited by
Rich Steeves
