Visa to develop payment applications for Google, Nokia phones

26 September 2008

Google's revolutionary phone G1 powered by its own Android operating system is really going places.

Within a week of its unveiling, world's largest payment processor Visa has declared that it will make a mobile payment application for the product, including alerts for credit card usage. The phone is expected to be out in stores in the latter half of next month. (See: Android operating system to power Google's first mobile handset, G1)

Android users will be able to receive near real-time alerts about purchases via their mobile devices, Visa said. They will also be able to use location-based mapping technology to find ATM machines and nearby stores where they can redeem special Visa offers.

The software will be broadly available to US consumers by the end of the year, starting with holders of Chase Visa cards.

Additionally, instead of putting all its eggs in the Google basket, Visa also signed a deal to give users of Nokia's upcoming 6212 Classic-model cell phone the ability to make "contactless" payments in stores just by flashing their phone at an electronic scanner.

Similar "contactless" capabilities for Android users are still under development, Visa said.

But it said these services - already common in countries such as Japan - may not take off for years in the US as stores would need to install new card readers and cell phones with the corresponding technology would need to be in wider use.