{"id":4984,"date":"2011-05-14T14:57:25","date_gmt":"2011-05-14T18:57:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/drduru.com\/onetwentytwo\/?p=4984"},"modified":"2011-05-15T10:40:34","modified_gmt":"2011-05-15T14:40:34","slug":"visa-follows-blaze-mobile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drduru.com\/onetwentytwo\/2011\/05\/14\/visa-follows-blaze-mobile\/","title":{"rendered":"Visa Follows Blaze Mobile and Enables Mobile Transactions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, CNBC interviewed Visa (V) CEO and Chairman Joseph Saunders<\/a>. The title “Building the Digital Wallet” caught my attention because I am invested in Blaze Mobile<\/a>, a start-up whose main product, Blaze Mobile Wallet, enables mobile payments, banking, and ticketing. Visa invested in mobile payment start-up Square<\/a> in April, 2011, and the company’s plan to introduce a mobile wallet service in the U.S. and Canada this fall is a major endorsement of this mobile technology and the service.<\/p>\n


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Saunders explains Visa’s digital wallet takes traditional ecommerce with Visa’s point-of-sale business and makes it all interoperable. Consumers can make purchases with the wave of a phone as long as there is a compatible terminal. Visa has developed a seamless environment that connects the technology of mobile and ecommerce with Visa’s infrastructure. Consumers just need one click and a password to access products on the internet, make gaming purchases from a social network, use a plastic card with magnetic stripe, use a phone with an enabling chip, or buy on the internet with a PC.<\/p>\n

Apparently, AT&T and T-Mobile had planned to start their own rival network but may join Visa instead (AT&T partially blames regulation<\/a> that limits fees the company could collect on mobile transactions). Saunders suggested they found it hard to replicate Visa’s infrastructure from point-of-sale to the customer. There are a lot of nuances involved in handling these transactions around the world, 24 hours a day. <\/p>\n

Mobile transactions are sure to represent a rapidly growing segment of commerce. CNBC did not note that the technology to enable these transactions is not brand new. Blaze Mobile<\/a> has been around for many years now (I invested in 2005) and continues to introduce many innovative products and services that allow consumers to integrate mobile transactions across financial institutions. I think there will be more acquisitions in this space, and companies that continue to innovate with mobile wallet technologies will experience rapid growth in the years ahead. <\/p>\n

Here is an example of how this technology works using Blaze Mobile Wallet:<\/p>\n