Monitise and DeviceFidelity Collaborating on Contactless Mobile Payments

Mobile banking and payments technology provider Monitise, which announced this spring that it has more than two million users in the U.K. and U.S., today says it has a partnership with DeviceFidelity that will allow mobile phone users to conduct contactless Visa payWave transactions.

Monitise has long been a partner with Visa and Visa has a longstanding partnership with DeviceFidelity, so this new link is not surprising. It means that Monitise will now be able to offer mobile banking and contactless mobile payments in an integrated product.

DeviceFidelity produces a microSD chip containing a contactless payment program that can communicate with contactless terminals. The chip looks like a phone memory card and fits into the memory slot of most smart phones (the exception is the iPhone, which doesn't have a memory slot; for the iPhone, DeviceFidelity makes a sleeve into which its microSD chip can be plugged).

The two companies say they are piloting a joint mobile banking/contactless payment solution with a major financial institution in the U.S. (Bank of America is already piloting DeviceFidelity's chip with Visa payWave.) Monitise's existing bank customers include HSBC, First Direct, Royal Bank of Scotland, NatWest, Ulster Bank, and Standard Chartered Bank. After the pilot, Monitise says it will start making the solution generally available.