Visa and Intel Form Strategic Alliance to Advance Mobile Commerce
Barcelona, Spain, February 27, 2012 - Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) and Intel Corporation today announced a strategic agreement to develop mobile commerce solutions tailored to consumers in developed and developing countries. During a press conference at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the companies outlined plans to collaborate to ensure consumers enjoy a consistent, streamlined, secure mobile commerce experience across Intel® Atom-based smartphones and tablets.
"Visa's agreement with Intel paves the way for financial institutions around the globe to offer their account holders mobile payments and financial services using innovative mobile devices and technologies designed by Intel," said John Partridge, President, Visa Inc. during the press conference. "This is another example of how Visa is making mobile payments broadly available across devices and operating systems and is ensuring that mobile commerce applications are aligned with existing technology and security standards established by the global payments industry."
The initial phase of the agreement between Visa and Intel includes:
Visa has certified Intel's Smartphone Reference Device powered by the Intel® Atom processor Z2460 for use with Visa payWave, Visa's mobile payment technology that enables consumers to make fast and secure payments at retail locations by simply waving their mobile phone in front of a payment terminal. This will enable turn-key implementation for OEMs delivering NFC-enabled smartphones.
The Intel Smartphone Reference Device will host the Visa payWave payment application and features NFC (Near Field Communication) technology, the short range communications standard that enables mobile phones to securely transmit payment information to a payment terminal.
When used in combination with a Visa-compliant UICC, smartphones based on the Intel Smartphone Reference Device handset can be enabled to connect to Visa Inc.'s mobile provisioning service providing financial institutions and mobile operators the means to securely download Visa payment account information and the Visa payWave application "over the air" to a secure chip on an NFC-equipped smartphone. The connection to Visa's mobile provisioning service can be enabled by a Trusted Services Management platform, such as Giesecke & Devrient's (G&D) platform.
"Intel's strategy is to enable more secure and compelling user experiences across a range of Intel-based mobile devices. Our alliance with Visa builds on this strategy and brings worldwide mobile payment and commerce solutions to Intel-based devices," said Mike Bell, Intel Vice President and General Manager of the company's Mobile and Communications Group. "Our work with Visa also extends to our customers designing products based on Intel's Smartphone Reference Device."
The agreement combines Visa's expertise in payment processing, account holder authentication and global network reach, with Intel's expertise and leadership in developing innovative technologies that serve as the foundation for the world's computing devices.