The announcement was made at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week and is claimed to be the first of its kind between a leading near field communications (NFC) handset manufacturer and payment network.
To address the slow take-off of “tap-and-pay” technology, the agreement states that Samsung will preload Visa’s pay Wave application on to its NFC-enabled handset.
This is expected to make it simpler and quicker for consumers and financial institutions to connect their bank accounts to their new handsets.
“The partnership with Visa represents a step towards a global mobile payment platform,” said Won-Pyo Hong, head of Samsung’s Media Solution Centre.
“We believe that we have a strong value proposition for financial institutions that will ultimately allow consumer choice in NFC payments.”
The deal follows Samsung’s deal with European operator Three UK for LTE services in August last year.
