Speaking at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Visa has announced that, having helped Apple Pay get up and running, it is now ready to help other mobile payment platforms. As reported by Ken Wieland on the Mobile World Congress website, Visa Inc. global president Ryan McInerney said that his company persevered in the project “not just for Apple Pay, but to build a system that had open architecture, was form-factor, handset and platform agnostic, and allowed our partners to build their own payment products.”
McInerney went on to assert that Visa is working closely with Samsung to develop its newly-announced mobile payment service, Samsung Pay. He declined, when prompted by a journalist in the audience, to expound on how the different services compare to each other, but he did acknowledge that Samsung’s use of LoopPay technology will put its platform in a position to take advantage of the card reader systems already in place at most retailer POS’s in the American market.
Visa clearly sees that the mobile commerce and payment fields are blowing up, and is trying to get in on as much action as it can. Apple Pay has been a major success, and will soon face competition from both Samsung Pay and Android Pay, another rival from Samsung’s longtime strategic ally Google. Additionally, Alipay is increasing its presence, with a fierce showdown looming in the opening Chinese market. It’s an exciting time in these areas, and as a secondary player Visa has an opportunity to benefit from many angles at once.
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