(Associated Press via NewsEdge) Visa USA will make investments and partner with technology companies to push the concept of turning the cell phone into a credit or debit card, a move that president and CEO John Philip Coghlan said is 'inevitable.'
During a keynote speech at the CTIA Wireless trade show, Coghlan will discuss Visa's investment in Ecrio, a privately held software company based in Cupertino, California, as well as in dotMobi, an Irish consortium seeking to create a .mobi domain name for Web sites aimed at cell phones.
The company is also partnering with Qualcomm and Kyocera to create phones that can make payments. VeriSign is another partner.
The concept of using the cell phone to pay for groceries or clothes is an attractive one to both the wireless and the financial industries.
The carriers see it as another opportunity to make money by taking a percentage of the transaction.
The credit-card companies see the convenience of attaching a payment feature on the cell phone driving additional transactions. Visa is hoping its mobile platform will bring the two sides together.
Its move comes after AT&T and banks such as Wachovia unveiled a partnership to allow customers to pay bills on their handsets.
Visa's investment in Ecrio will help it develop near-field communications technology. It also will help the private company develop technology called MoBeam, or mobile barcode redemption, which allows handsets to beam barcodes to laser point-of-sale terminals.
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