Visa Inc. said Thursday it's developing mobile payment software for the new wireless phone powered by Google Inc.'s Android system.
San Francisco-based Visa said Android users will be able to receive near real-time alerts about purchases via their mobile devices. Users also will 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 U.S. consumers by the end of the year, starting with holders of Chase Visa cards. Visa's announcement came two days after T-Mobile USA showed off the G1, the first phone harnessing Google's ambition to make the Internet easy to use on the go. The T-Mobile device is schedule to hit U.S. stores Oct. 22.
"By developing these mobile services for the Android platform, Visa has taken a major step toward achieving our goal of combining two of the world's most powerful and ubiquitous consumer innovations, electronic payments and mobile technology," said Elizabeth Buse, Visa's global products head.
The nation's largest payment network 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.
Visa also announced an agreement with U.S. Bank, lead bank of US Bancorp, to launch a mobile money transfer pilot program. Expected to begin on a trial basis by year-end, the program would allow Visa's U.S. cardholders to use their mobile devices to send funds directly to another Visa cardholder's account.
According to Visa's website, there are 1.6 billion Visa cards in circulation with nearly $4 trillion transacted among its payment products in the 12 months ended March 31.
