Visa Europe announces first large scale UK mobile pilot for payments

Visa Europe has today announced its participation in the trial of the O2 Wallet, the first large scale NFC (Near Field Communications) pilot to take place in the UK to examine the use of mobile phones to pay for purchases, access events or even be used as Oyster cards for travel around London, simply by touching the phone to a reader.

The six month trial involving over 500 people invited to take part from the O2 customer base, takes place across selected sites across London and begins on 28th November 2007 until the end of May 2008. It is designed to establish what services and functionality consumers would like from an NFC phone.

Sandra Alzetta, Head of Innovation and Acceptance at Visa Europe commented:

"Visa Europe's involvement in the 02 trial supports our commitment to the development and commercialisation of mobile payments around the world. It is an obvious next step following the recent introduction of Visa payWave contactless technology in London and will allow us to apply the experiences gained through other mobile trials around the world. We are delighted to be working with 02 and the other trial partners to provide the payment technology behind this groundbreaking project which will make electronic payments even more accessible, flexible and convenient to use."

Participants in the trial will be given a Nokia 6131 - NFC, installed with multiple NFC applications including Oyster, which they will use in a range of different ways to test out different services in London. In order to make this as comprehensive a pilot as possible, O2 has brought together a broad range of partners, including Visa Europe, Transport for London, TranSys, Barclaycard, Nokia and AEG.

During phase 1 of the trial (November to February) 225 trialists will be given a Barclaycard Visa pre-paid card loaded on their handset enabling them to use it to make cashless payments under £10 at retail outlets in London which currently accept Visa payWave transactions. During Phase II, from February 2008 - May 2008, possible developments include PIN capability, over £10 purchases and reloadable / credit funds capability. Everyone participating in the trial will be asked to provide feedback on the services, in particular how easy and useful they find them and how safe and confident they feel using them.

Concludes Sandra Alzetta:

"The power of Near Field Communications is that it gives consumers access to a whole range of contactless functionality including payment, transport, ticketing and smart posters through an everyday device they know and rely upon - their mobile phone. We know the concept is appealing to consumers and this trial will tell us what features they find most relevant."

The project is part of the Visa Mobile Platform global activity and the Visa payment solution complies with Visa's global mobile pilot specifications that are today being trialed in different projects around the world.

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Notes to editors:

Mobile payments

• Visa Inc. and Visa Europe are actively involved in a number of mobile payment trials around the world including Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Korea, Malaysia, Spain, Taiwan and the USA.
• NFC differs from Bluetooth in that it supports a number of industry-standard protocols that can be used for data transmission for secure applications such as payment and transportation. This makes it suitable for applications and services which make plastic cards or paper tickets obsolete, resulting in cost savings and a solution to business needs in multiple industries.
• Communication is enabled by bringing two NFC compatible devices within a few centimetres of one another or for the two devices to literally "touch" one another. NFC is compatible with the 13.56 MHz family and is based on the ISO standard 18092 approved in 2003 that integrates standard 14443 (which defines so-called "proximity" systems that can reach over 10 cm), as well as Sony's FeliCa and Philips's MIFARE systems (e.g. Oyster).?

About Near Field Communications (NFC)

• NFC is a short range wireless connectivity technology standard designed for simple and safe communication between electronic devices. NFC is essentially contactless functionality that can be used with a variety of devices from mobile phones that enable payments, transport and ticketing to digital cameras that send their photos to a TV set with just a touch.
• This makes it suitable for applications and services which make plastic cards or paper tickets obsolete, resulting in cost savings and a solution to business needs in multiple industries. NFC changes the way consumers interact with devices and services in their surrounding.
• Communication is enabled by bringing two NFC compatible devices within a few centimetres of one another or for the two devices to literally "touch" one another. NFC is compatible with the 13.56 MHz family and is based on the ISO standard 18092 approved in 2003 that integrates standard 14443 (which defines so-called "proximity" systems that can reach over 10 cm), as well as Sony's FeliCa and Philips's MIFARE systems (e.g. Oyster).

Trialists

• Trialists are O2 customers (a mix of pre-pay and post-pay) and all are regular Oyster users.
• In the initial phase of the trial, Barclaycard will credit each phone with £200 worth of non-reloadable funds which trialists can use and spend as they see fit at any participating retailer. As well as making payments, they will also be able to use the phones to check available funds and to locate retailers close to them that accept 'contactless' payments, including Books Etc, Chop'd, Coffee Republic, EAT, Krispy Kreme, Threshers and YO! Sushi.
• 225 trialists will receive the Barclaycard application. The criteria for selection of these trialists is that they have to be over the age of 18 and travel to and from work in the London area (where contactless payment readers are available) five out of seven days of the week.
• The trialists have been recruited by an email and a call campaign
• Trialists will receive a package of incentives for participating in the trial including a combination of £50 Oyster credit from Transport for London, £60 of prepaid airtime or credit to their monthly bills from O2, and £200 credit for purchases from Barclaycard

Partners

• In addition to Transport for London, Transys, Barclaycard, Visa Europe, AEG and Nokia, O2 has been working with a number of other partners and suppliers to make the trial possible.
• O2 and Nokia are collaborating on handsets that support NFC applications. In addition to the Nokia 6131 NFC phones used in this project Nokia has also offered O2 a limited number of test or prototype phones that support the Single Wire Protocol (SWP) and the SIM as the Secure Element, or area where the applications are stored.
• Venyon managed the Over The Air (OTA) services including the OTA download and personalization of the Barclaycard pre-paid payment application and corresponding user-interface application (Visa Mobile Application).
• Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) handles the secure data management for the Barclaycard application based on G&D's Java card operating system. It is planned that in subsequent trial phases all NFC-applications will reside on NFC-enabled SIM cards.
• NEC and Fortress worked with O2 and AEG on the VIP club application.
• Innovision supplied the smart tags for the posters.
• Parrot supplied digital photo frames for touch and uploading of photos from the NFC phones.
• Consult Hyperion provided consulting and development services to O2.

About Visa Europe

In Europe, there are nearly 321 million Visa debit, credit and commercial cards. In the 12 months ending September 2006, those cards were used to make purchases and cash withdrawals to the value of over €1.2 trillion. For every €9 spent in Europe today, €1 is spent on a Visa card.

Visa Europe is a membership association - an organisation owned and operated by its 4,500 European member banks - that was incorporated in July 2004. In October 2007, Visa Europe became independent of the new global Visa Inc., with an exclusive, irrevocable and perpetual licence in Europe.

As a dedicated European payment system it is able to respond quickly to the specific market needs of European banks and their customers - cardholders and retailers, and to meet the European Commission's objective to create a true internal market for payments.

Visa enjoys unsurpassed acceptance around the world. In addition, Visa/Plus is one of the world's largest global ATM networks, offering cash access in local currency in over 170 countries.