Mobile payment is at a critical moment in its development, and realizing its full potential will require close collaboration between the wireless and payment card industries, Visa USA President and CEO John Philip Coghlan said in a keynote address at the CTIA Wireless conference.

"Given the striking similarities in the paths our two industries have traveled, it is only natural we have arrived at a moment of convergence," Coghlan said. "In fact, the convergence of payments and mobile communications is not just logical - it is inevitable."

Taking the stage in Orlando in front of several thousand attendees, Coghlan detailed the steps Visa is taking to advance mobile payments, such as the recently announced Visa mobile platform. Visa's mobile platform is a set of mobile services and enabling technologies that serve as flexible building blocks for the development of mobile payment solutions by the financial services and mobile telecommunications industries.

Coghlan stressed Visa's commitment to partner with wireless and financial industry leaders enabled by the Visa mobile platform. He underscored this message by announcing a number of strategic alliances and partnerships:

*dotMobi - Visa announced a strategic investment in dotMobi, a consortium of wireless industry leaders that is pioneering the use of the ".mobi" domain address and is enabling the integration of enhanced mobile commerce into the mobile consumer Internet experience.

*Ecrio - Visa announced a strategic alliance and investment in Ecrio; Ecrio enables the redemption of barcode-enabled coupons and tickets from mobile devices at existing point of sale (POS) systems.

*VeriSign - VeriSign today announced it will support the Visa mobile platform. As part of the agreement, Visa will use VeriSign's content delivery services to provide mobile offer management capabilities. 
      
*Qualcomm - Visa is working with Qualcomm to help bring CDMA and WCDMA platforms to market that include NFC, and support the Visa mobile platform.

*Kyocera Wireless - The handset manufacturer has agreed to support the Visa mobile platform and will showcase the platform on CDMA-based phones that include NFC at the CTIA event. 

During his presentation, Coghlan released the results of a Visa survey[1] that looked at consumer attitudes toward mobile payment. Highlights included:

*Fifty-seven percent of those surveyed expressed interest in getting a phone with a payment application when shown what a payment-enabled phone might look like.[2] 
      
*Nearly 90 percent of those who were interested in mobile payment said they would pay extra for a phone with this feature.
      
*Sixty-four percent of consumers in the survey aged 18-42 said they would consider switching mobile carriers from one that does not offer mobile payment capabilities to one that does, assuming they could keep their phone number.
      
*Fifty-eight percent of the same age group said they would consider switching financial institutions to gain access to mobile payment services.
      
*By a ratio of five to one, consumers would prefer mobile purchases to pass through a credit or debit card network and appear on their card statement instead of appearing on their wireless bill.

"These numbers show me that younger consumers want the best of both worlds -- they want the freedom and functionality of a mobile phone with the security, convenience and ease of use of their debit or credit card," Coghlan said.