Visa Announces payWave Contactless Brand
Visa has announced Visa payWave, the new global brand name for the card scheme's contactless payments technology. Visa says it is now planning a consumer awareness campaign to promote Visa payWave.
Visa says it conducted extensive consumer research around the world before deciding what name to give its contactless platform. ôVisa payWave was identified by consumers as the perfect name,ö Visa says in a statement. æôWaveÆ best describes the action at the point-of-sale, while æpayÆ reinforces the function of the card or payment device.ö In Europe, Visa is working with UK banks to roll out contactless payments technology in London by October 2007. It is also planning to deploy contactless technology with member banks across Europe. In the U.S., BP is to roll out Visa contactless technology to 10,500 of its petrol station nationwide, having already installed contactless readers at 1,100 retail locations. In addition, U.S. financial institution Washington Mutual plans to start issuing Visa payWave-enabled cards in a pilot beginning in June 2007. WaMu will also be testing MasterCard PayPass-enabled cards. Visa says that Wells Fargo plans to convert its existing Visa contactless cards to Visa payWave over the next few months. However, Visa issuers are not obliged to upgrade their contactless cards to the platform, Visa says.Related Links
www.mastercardworldwide.com
www.visaeurope.com
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