By Telecom
Lead Team: Mobile payment market gets a boost with new partnerships. Visa,
the leader in financial transactions, has been actively engaged in partnerships
with service providers and technology leaders to offer mobile-based payment
service to customers.

Today Visa announced partnership with France Telecom-Orange
to provide Orange Money customers with access to Visa prepaid account features
inside their accounts. Orange plans to introduce Visa payment capability to
Orange Money subscribers in select markets by the end of 2012.

Visa recently also signed partnerships with Samsung
and Intel
to expand the mobile payment offerings to a wide range of customers.

Orange Money is the mobile phone-based payment service designed by Orange to
meet the needs of customers in Africa and the Middle East. The services offered
include person to person transfers, bill payments, and agent-based cash-in and
cash-out services for loading or withdrawing funds.

We already provide secure and convenient payment
capability to 3.5 million unbanked or financially under-served African citizens,”
said Jean- Paul Cottet, Orange’s executive director for Marketing and
Innovation. “By combining the convenience of Orange Money with the reach
of Visa’s global payment network, we can offer new payment capability to Orange
Money customers in their home country and abroad.”

Visa introduced Visa Mobile Prepaid in October 2011
that enhances security, scale and interoperability of mobile money programs,
such as Orange Money, by enabling account holders to make person-to-person
payments, retail and e-commerce purchases at merchants where Visa is accepted,
or withdraw funds at Visa ATMs.

Mobile technology has become one of the most
important enablers of financial inclusion and its ubiquity is allowing mobile
network operators, financial institutions, and Visa to connect financially
under-served consumers to each other and the global economy,” said John
Partridge, president, Visa.

The convergence of mobile and financial services networks
helps to remove service barriers, accelerates the pace of change and is
transforming the lives of consumers in developing countries.”

By integrating Visa Mobile Prepaid accounts into
Orange Money accounts, Orange is connecting existing mobile money subscribers
to VisaNet, Visa’s global payment network that is today utilized by 2.2 billion
account holders, 30 million merchants and provides access to 1.9 million ATMs
globally. The company will also provide Orange subsidiaries and their local
financial institution partners with the ability to offer all the features of
Visa Mobile Prepaid accounts to their customers.

[email protected]

 

Please
see the complete coverage of Mobile World Congress here