Visa Predicts 52 Billion Mobile Payments Per Month by End of 2013

Visa’s Sandra Alzetta predicts that the introduction of smartphones equipped with Visa’s mobile PayWave and Mobile Wallet services will boost the growth in European mobile payments and that more than 50 billion contactless payments will be made every month across Europe by the end of 2013. “From our perspective, mobile is of enormous importance,” Alzetta says. “By 2020, half our volume in Europe will be generated by a mobile phone.” She notes that mobile payment technologies offer many benefits over physical cash.

“We at Visa hate cash with a passion. It’s dirty and inefficient, so we’re thrilled mobile gives us more ways to attack cash,” Alzetta says. “One way it does this is with small retailers who for whatever reason haven’t started taking card, offering them an ideal way to upgrade and, secondly, for the informal person to person payments where they still use cash.” She notes that Visa is developing strategic partnerships with key players in the mobile industry to increase the number of smartphones that come with pre-installed payment services. “We believe partnerships are essential,” Alzetta says. “We don’t believe we can do this ourselves. We don’t believe anyone can.”

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From “Visa Predicts 52 Billion Mobile Payments Per Month by End of 2013”
V3.co.uk (07/02/13) Stevenson, Alastair