endocrine universality: Visa aims at developing countries with new international prepaid mobile payment service

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Visa aims at developing countries with new international prepaid mobile payment service

Shortly after announcing its new digital wallet service V.me for developed markets, Visa also made a presence at Mobile Asia Congress in Hong Kong to promote its new prepaid mobile money platform aimed at the under-banked and the unbanked consumers. By utilizing its recently-acquired Fundamo (which currently has more than 10 million mobile payment subscribers), Visa aims to leverage on the vast number of mobile phone users in developing countries -- many of whom are already using local but carrier-bound mobile payment systems -- in order to offer a globally interoperable mobile payment network.

This overlaying platform is said to be more secure, much cheaper and more convenient than the likes of Western Union, especially when you can simply make mobile-to-mobile payments when sending money across countries. Nigeria and Uganda will be the first nations to get a taste of this early next year courtesy of telecommunications provider MTN Group, and eventually more developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America will join the list. Full press release after the break.

Gallery: Visa aims at developing countries with new international mobile-to-mobile payment service