Visa is expanding its programme to integrate payment technologies into emerging devices and platforms, including NFC-enabled smartphones.
The Visa Ready Partner Program is designed to help device manufacturers, mobile networks and other partners to gain access to Visa intellectual property and licenses, including APIs and SDK’s for mobile point-of-sale payments.
One aim of the programme is to help developers determine whether mobile devices, software and other technologies are compatible with Visa’s requirements. Financial institutions and merchants will do their part as well, by helping adopt and test secure mobile payments solutions.
The necessary APIs and SDKs will be made available to point-of-sale providers to connect to Visa using payment gateways CyberSource and Authorize.net, reports Tech Crunch. Visa will provide partners and developers with other tools, allowing them to integrate other technologies such as magnetic strip cards, EMV chips and contactless card payments.
In keeping with the times, Visa is pledging to streamline its compliance testing process for NFC devices and secure chips that use the Visa payWave application. Part of the plan is to enable NFC devices to host payWave services as well.
Developers now have their work cut out for them, while small merchants and other partners stand to gain from Visa’s vast user base and e-payment services.
