VISA Digital Wallet: Pay Your Bills Using Your Handphone
In earlier days, when there existed no international boundaries, no government and no tax laws, prevailed the barter system where people exchanged possessions instead of buying or selling them. Then with the advancements and formation of government rules and regulation saw the use of currency in the form of gold and silver coins, which later transformed into copper, steel coins and paper money, and also plastic money in certain areas. With the technological developments we started using credit and debit cards for our payments which employed the use of a magnetic chip where data is stored and account information contained on these cards is altered using proper machines according to the purchase. But today in the modern era, even the magnetic chip cards have been rendered obsolete by the new system of payment that is been introduced now, where you need no cash, no credit cards, no debit cards and no cheque books, but simply your cell phone to make any payment directly from your bank account. The popularity of the cell phone in the last decade has increased at such a rate that even a child at school is seen using them now, and right from the beginning when it was just used to talking purposes, the mobile industry has seen a great evolution and now its use has been extended to photography, social networking, internet access, application usage, gaming and much more, and now it includes an in-built debit card as well.
[pullquote_right]The digital wallets to be introduced by Visa are speculated to run with the smartphones that are equipped with proper sensors which can communicate with the credit or debit card terminals.[/pullquote_right]The world’s largest credit and debit card processing network, Visa Inc. has developed this digital wallet where you could easily login to your accounts from your mobile phone and buy things online or in markets with your cell phone with an easy click of a button instead of the traditional credit or debit cards. The procedure avoids the paperwork and signature norms of a normal credit or debit card transaction and instead uses a username and password for authentication. The digital wallet stores the bank account information for both Visa cards and other cards and people can use their wallet to make purchases online as well. The convenience level for a purchase is very high on this one as you don’t even have to enter your account details as they are pre-stored into the application software and with the use of a reader or an information extractor and companies will also be able to easily update payments made into their accounts.
It is reported that Visa is working with several large U.S. and international banks to develop the wallet. Its partners include US Bancorp, PNC Financial Services, Regions Financial, BB&T Corp, Toronto Dominion’s TD Bank and the U.S. arm of Barclays PLC.
The main features that the digital wallet has are the following:
- One click purchase – The software will allow the customers to make purchases at a simple click of a button of their cell phones, instead of the traditional system where one had to enter various details.
- Global payment – The digital wallet will support payments on various networks and websites across various platforms.
- Account management – The customer will have full control of their accounts and could modify their account settings any time at will. They could change privacy settings as well as user details, directly from their mobile phones.
- Easy availing of offers and discounts – The discounts and sale offers offered by a company could be easily availed using the digital wallet and the company will also be able to keep track of their transaction with customers in a much more simple fashion.
The digital wallets to be introduced by Visa are speculated to run with the smartphones that are equipped with proper sensors which can communicate with the credit or debit card terminals. Visa’s major competition will be with eBay’s Paypal system for online purchase which exists across the globe as well as Google’s Checkout which is yet another convenient payment system online, and the neck to neck competitors that are trying to develop the same product are MasterCard Incorporated (NYSE: MA), American Express Company (NYSE: AXP) and Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS) have plans to create their own wallets. There are also various phone carriers like Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ), T-Mobile USA, and AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) who plan to come up with their own digital wallets and have much more in store for the customers other than just being able to make a purchase off mobile phone.
Shahenshah Jaffri
Shahenshah is a computer science engineer who likes to do things differently. He spends most of his time with the love of his life which is his computer, using it mostly for gaming and writing and has a incredible knack for peppering humour into his life.