News

U.S. Bank to test mobile payments

November 16, 2010

Minneapolis-based U.S. Bank and Visa announced they had partnered with DeviceFidelity, FIS and Monitise to introduce a new way for customers to make purchases using their mobile phone. Customers can simply wave their phone in front of a Visa payWave contactless payment terminal in order to pay. U.S. Bank employees in multiple states will begin testing the system this month. Plans are underway to introduce it to select customers next year.

Issued by U.S. Bank, a DeviceFidelity In2Pay microSD is inserted in the customer's mobile phone or within a specially-designed iPhone case (In2Pay iCaisse). Visa and DeviceFidelity recently introduced the patent-pending In2Pay microSD-based mobile contactless technology and the associated In2Pay iCaisse solution. FIS and Monitise developed the application that enables customers to make mobile purchases and access account information as part of the U.S. Bank pilot.

The solution conforms to the industry standard for memory cards, microSD, and fits into the memory card slot found in many existing mobile devices. U.S. Bank will be testing with several market leading mobile brands. This mobile payment solution is password protected and uses advanced security technology to uniquely identify each contactless transaction. As is true with a lost or stolen card, the chip can be immediately disabled by the bank as needed.

Last month, U.S. Bank launched a full-suite mobile banking solution with billpay capabilities for prepaid cardholders — the first of its kind in the prepaid marketplace, according to the bank. It was also the first large American bank to test the Visa Money Transfer person-to-person mobile payment service, and has partnered with Visa to give cardholders on-the go access to account alerts, offers and a locator service with the Visa Mobile application.