ANZ and Visa lose the plot

In one of the more witless examples of PR buffoonery ever witnessed at Finextra Towers (and that's saying something), Visa and ANZ have been moved to quell reports  that their recent trial of Device Fidelity's MicroSD-based m-payments technology was anything other than a spectacular success.

Bearing the headline 'ANZ-Visa mobile phone payment pilot a success', the bank and card scheme declared: "Australians have a strong appetite for contactless mobile phone payments, according to the results of a four-week trial ANZ and Visa released today, with almost 90 percent of participants saying the trial either met or exceeded their expectations."

ANZ head of product management consumer cards & unsecured lending Sam Qubrosi said: "We've learnt a great deal from the participants about how customers use NFC."

Hmmm. That seems true enough.

Earlier this week, an ANZ spokesman told ZDNet Australia that although the trial participants backed mobile contactless payments, it was ditching this particular implementation, as "the MicroSD technology did not meet all of our requirements".

Switch to today's more effusive press statement and we learn that "close to 80 percent of the participants said they would consider getting a Visa payWave enabled MicroSD if it was commercially available".

Which is great! Then again, while I might "consider" getting the Finextra logo as a tatoo on my left buttock, I'd never actually DO it (I think).

What else does our forensic examination (ie quick scan) of this master class in press manipulation reveal?

Here's the kicker, in the very next sentence no less: "However, there are a number of ways to implement mobile payments including with handsets that have NFC technology built-in."

That's cleared that one up then. Top marks everyone.