Payment News

Visa Europe and Turkey’s Akbank announced today that they have launched a product called In2Pay which is manufactured by DeviceFidelity. In2Pay is a payment platform that uses microSD card that is inserted into a mobile phone enabling the phone to make payment transactions. In2Pay utilizes Near Field Communication (NFC) as a contactless payment technology platform along with a microSD card to enable mobile phones to work with NFC readers to process payments.

Right now there are not many smartphones using NFC technology integrated with the phone for contactless mobile payments. Many of the smartphone on the market today utilizes microSD slots except for Apple’s iPhone which does not have a microSD slot.

Some of the issues that NFC technology is facing in order for contactless mobile payment to be successful is the lack of smartphone being built with integrated NFC chips. This will probably continue to be the case until NFC becomes one of the standard methods of payments for consumers according to the Head of Mobile at Visa Europe, Mary Carol Harris. When Visa takes the initiative and works with companies such as DeviceFidelity, it means a lot to the progress of NFC technology as it increases accessibility and speeds up the process of NFC mobile payments being a normal form of payment in our everyday lives subsequently.

Right now microSD cards are a great way to enable mobile device to function as a contactless payment device and microSD can also be used to store data and NFC technology does not hinder that.

DeviceFidelity’s In2Pay microSD technology uses Secure Element industry standard and the device is completely Global Platform and EMV complaint. Currently In2Pay can only be used with Research in Motion’s Blackberry and can only be use in Turkey. Visa has plans to expand the microSD card technology to other countries and smartphone such as Google’s Android, Palm, Motorola, LG, Nokia and others. In2Pay microSD card cannot be use with Apple’s iPhone because it does not support microSD cards. DeviceFidelity had to manufacture a separate device just to accommodate the iPhone a few months ago.

Source: Dean Wilson of TechEye.net