M-payment: PagSeguro and Nokia Testing Contactless Payment in Brazil
- The Brazilian e-PSP PagSeguro has partnered with Nokia to trial NFC P2P and face-to-face (restaurants, groceries, etc.) payment services. Its commercial launch should take place next months.
- The new app has been developed in Brazil by the Nokia Institute of Technology (INdT) and works on Nokia C7, N9 and 701 NFC cell phones. Both customers and merchants must have installed the software to enable transactions, each disposing of a dedicated interface.
- Once authenticated, the user specifies whether he wants to sell or buy: the seller enters the transaction amount and approaches his phone to the payer’s. The amount is then displayed on the purchaser’s side for him to confirm his payment.
- The transmitted funds can for instance be debited from a credit card or PayPal account.
Source: INdT Nokia press release
- The Brazilian market is increasingly investing in mobile payment: according to a study conducted by IDC (Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker), Brazil should witness significant growth in adoption and uses and be ranged World 4th by 2016, after China, the US and India.
- Nokia has been making several announcements these past months regarding NFC solutions in Europe and seems to be asserting its interest in mobile contactless payment despite its disinvestment from Mobile Money in India (see March 2012 Insight).
- This solution is presented as an alternative to various rival initiatives, including PayPal Wallet and Google Wallet in the US for instance. It would also be challenging mobile payments based on the carriers’ billing services: a market selected by Zong in Brazil –the latter has been acquired by PayPal in July 2011 (see July 2011 insight).