Visa & U.S. Bank Announce Plans to Launch Mobile Money Transfer Pilot
September 25, 2008 5:55 PM | Interesting | Comments (0)
Visa Inc. and U.S. Bank today announced plans to launch a mobile money transfer pilot program to allow registered Visa cardholders in the United States to use their mobile phones to securely send funds directly to another registered Visa cardholder's account. The pilot, which is intended to begin by the end of 2008, is the first U.S.-based trial testing mobile money transfers between Visa accounts. The services provided in this U.S. trial complement what Visa already offers by way of money transfer service to consumers in 13 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. In addition to supporting money transfers through mobile devices, Visa enables the service through other existing channels, including bank branches, ATMs, the Internet, and kiosks. |  |
Visa cardholders participating in this pilot will be able to initiate money transfer transactions using a mobile web browser to access a secure interface. The transferred funds will be credited directly to the recipient's Visa account. The recipient can then access the funds via a cash withdrawal at an ATM or by making a purchase at any merchant that accepts Visa products, subject to the recipient's bank's funds availability policies.
The first phase of the mobile money transfer pilot program will enable domestic money transfers within the U.S. and will involve several Visa issuers, including U.S. Bank, and as many as 6,000 Visa account holders. The initial pilot is intended to provide Visa and its partners with valuable insight into consumer behavior. Based on these learnings, a second pilot phase is expected to extend the program to include cross-border transactions during the first half of 2009.
At the heart of the mobile money transfer service is Visa's mobile platform, a suite of technologies that enables Visa, its clients, and mobile operators to engage in trial activities and develop commercially scalable mobile services. Built on years of experience in mobile payments, Visa's platform complements the infrastructure of mobile carriers and financial institutions, and is supported by handset manufacturers, chip suppliers, mobile applications developers, over-the-air (OTA) service providers and mobile messaging providers.
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