Rogers holds hands with RBC / Visa for mobile phone payment pilot

by Darren Murph, posted Oct 30th 2008 at 11:43PM

If you're tired of paying for random snacks and such the old fashioned way (you know, swiping your credit card and handing over your John Henry), Rogers Wireless feels your pain. While not the first mobile payment initiative to hit the Great North, this one has some pretty notable backers. Starting in mid-2009, Rogers, RBC and Visa will join together to allow customers "to pay for small purchases" so long as they're holding one of the "specially-equipped mobile phones that can be waved at Visa payWave-enabled checkout readers at select retail stores and quick-service restaurants in Toronto's downtown core." The pilot will utilize Motorola handsets outfitted with Near Field Communication (NFC) contactless chips, while Gemalto will be managing the transfer of credit card information from RBC to the secure SIM card. There's no word on plans beyond the trial, but here's hoping it does something more than just fizzle out.

[Via mobilesyrup]

Filed under: Handsets, Rogers Wireless, Misc

Tags: canada, contactless, mobile banking, mobile payment, MobileBanking, MobilePayment, Near Field Communication, NearFieldCommunication, NFC, RBC, rogers, Rogers Wireless, RogersWireless, visa

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

oshawapilot @ Oct 31st 2008 7:34AM

If they could do this so it debited the amount directly out of my bank account (as Canadians Interac-debit cards currrently work, except requiring a swipe and a PIN) it would take off. I'd love to be able to pay for small purchases with only the swipe of my cellphone, no PIN entry or signature required.

But, making all purchases default to a Visa credit card (instead of actually out of my POSITIVE balance bank account) is just another ploy to get people to run up their credit cards. $5 here and $5 there several times through the day all adds up by the end of the month. I use my debit card for probably anywhere from $10 to $100 worth of purchases a day (higher days = gas purchases), but I would NEVER use my Visa card the same way - I'd run up $500 or $1000 in a month easily before I ever saw my statement and actually realized how much I had spent.

Many will probably pay the minimum and expand their credit card balances as a result.

I'm sure that's their plan.

Many Canadians won't bite on that, and this is another plan doomed to fail like several others before it.

Neutral