Visa Focuses on New Generation of Payment Technologies, Visa payWave

WaMu, the nation’s 6th largest bank card issuer, will begin issuing Visa credit cards with the contactless payment feature to its account holders in a pilot test starting in June 2007. With the addition of WaMu, four of the nation’s top ten Visa issuers have now adopted the technology, and have made contactless payment technology available to consumers in the United States.

BP is joining a growing list of merchants nationwide to upgrade point-of-sale infrastructure and accept Visa products with the contactless feature. Already, consumers can take advantage of the no-swipe technology at 1,100 BP branded sites and BP plans to roll-out this technology to 10,500 of its retail locations nationwide. In total, approximately 31,000 merchant locations in the United States accept contactless payments.

In an effort to support the momentum for contactless payments worldwide, Visa has developed a global name for its contactless payment feature: Visa payWave. The descriptive name was chosen because it provides consumers with an illustration of the action required to make a contactless payment and best communicates the transaction speed, ease and convenience of using the contactless feature. Visa conducted extensive, global consumer research to determine the best way of describing its contactless feature. According to consumers participating in the research, “payWave” was identified as a good way to describe the contactless feature of a payment device, like a card or mobile device. Visa also utilized marketing intelligence from its Asia Pacific region which had successfully introduced the contactless feature as “Visa Wave” in Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan. The Visa payWave feature is available today on Visa credit, debit and prepaid products and is currently being piloted in mobile devices worldwide.

In addition, Visa is planning an integrated marketing campaign to highlight the speed and convenience of the Visa payWave feature, help consumers recognize the universal acceptance symbol for contactless payments at the point of sale, and illustrate the simplicity of making a Visa payWave transaction.