Visa's Cloud: The New Way to Pay?
The Cloud enables Mobile Devices to function as Credit Cards
Visa’s solution will allow consumers to pay using a mobile device with the payWave technology instead of a traditional plastic credit card. Visa says that this process will happen using what it calls a secure, virtual cloud. Better known as Host Card Emulation. This emulation works by allowing an android powered device to have the same wireless functionality of a payWave enabled credit card. Instead of having to pack around plastic, you could essentially choose your charge card and wave your phone in front of the payWave terminal in order to make purchases at point of sale systems.
Elizabeth Buse is an Executive Vice President of Visa. In a press release, she was quoted as saying “The Android HCE feature provides us with a platform to evolve the Visa payWave standard, support the development of secure, cloud-based mobile applications, while at the same time offer greater choice to our clients.”
Theoretically, the cloud could replace credit cards altogether. Since everyone seems to have a smart phone, this type of technology could be deployed quickly and securely to hundreds of millions of consumers all around the world. This type of technology could make us look back on plastic credit cards as being like antiquated items of the past such as VHS or cassette tapes. Visa will continue innovation on this cloud payment system while focusing on security and ease of use. Since this is a rather new technology, other businesses are sure to sprout up as a result of this new cloud service being introduced. This shift to the cloud could also make paying for things more secure. Since mobile device management can easily erase the contents of a stolen phone, a thief having unfettered access to a stolen plastic credit card can do much more damage than a thief who is stuck trying to unlock a bricked phone.
