Visa Debuts New Mobile Payments And NFC Partner Program For Merchants And Developers, Ready

Credit card company Visa is ramping up its partner program to help integrate its payments technologies in mobile devices and platforms. The new initiative, called the Visa Ready Partner Program, aims to help mobile device manufacturers, technology partners, mobile network operators, and others gain access to Visa IP, licenses and more.

While Visa has an existing program for the approval of mobile NFC-enabled devices, the company is revealing a new program to enable APIs, and SDKs for all mobile point-of-sale acceptance and payments. In addition, Visa has developed the new Visa Ready symbol to identify payment devices and solutions approved for use with Visa payments.

The program itself has a number of layers. First, it is a resource for developers to determine whether devices, software and and other technologies used to initiate or accept Visa payments are compatible with Visa’s requirements, which Visa says, varies by country. For financial institutions and merchants, the Visa Ready Partner Program will provide the ways that these companies can adopt and access tested and secure mobile payments solutions.

As part of the program, Visa will make APIs and SDKs available to allow mobile point of sale providers to connect to Visa via payments gateways CyberSource and Authorize.Net. Visa says it will also provide other tools, applications and services to help developers build products that are compatible with magnetic-stripe, EMV-chip, and contactless-card payments.

Visa is also streamlining its compliance testing process for both mobile NFC devices and secure chips that host the Visa payWave application. Part of this process includes establishing a required signal range for mobile NFC-enabled devices hosting the Visa payWave application.

Visa, which invested in payments company Square a few years ago, is looking for more ways to be part of the development process of new technologies as more companies and startups dip their toes in mobile payments products. This program is a way to work with developers to make sure they are developing secure products, and incorporating the ability to accept Visa into these payments portals.