Vodafone is to launch its own mobile payments service in the UK next month.
Vodafone’s payment service has been developed in conjunction with Visa and will use a special SIM card embedded with NFC technology which can be used to swipe a contactless payment.
The service is to be announced next month but isn’t likely to be available to consumers until later this year.
Mark Ritzmann, Head of M-Commerce at Vodafone, said that mobile payments can be used for transactions up to £25 but the company was working on a PIN-protected method for larger payments.
Vodafone also said more than 300,000 terminals had been enabled for Visa contactless payments (a 67 percent increase on last year) with more terminals set to roll out further.
Vodafone is likely to be beaten to a consumer launch by Apple though.
Apple’s event tomorrow evening is likely to see the launch of two new iPhones and its long awaited iWatch wearable. Apple is also expected to finally adopt NFC within its new iPhones and will use this for its own mobile payments service which should launch within a few weeks of the global iPhone 6 launch.
[signoff predefined=”Enjoy this?” icon=”icon-users”][/signoff]
