Visa International has partnered with Italy's Omnitel Vodafone to deliver a secure payment service for mobile commerce throughout the country.
The new service, called "OmniPay - Visa Mobile", will enable Omnitel Vodafone customers owning a Visa card to pay securely for goods and services while on the move, using their mobile phone and to top-up their prepaid phone.
Customers will register with Omnitel and with the bank which issued the Visa card and will be given a code which they will use to authenticate themselves.
Jon Prideaux, executive vice president, virtual Visa, Visa International, says the alliance with Omnitel Vodafone demonstrates the willingness of the telecom and banking industries to co-operate in the development of mobile payment systems.
"Visa Mobile is an entirely new approach for Visa to deliver secure m-commerce that we are offering in co-operation with the telecom industry for the first time in Europe," he says.
A pilot will be conducted shortly with Bankamericard, the card division of Deutsche Bank in Italy. The full rollout of the service is expected to take place during 2002.