Mobile commerce and e-payment have got a boost following Visa’s announced its support of the new global Quick Response (QR) code payment specifications from EMVCo. EMVCo is the global technical body that manages the EMV specifications. The specifications are central to both consumer and merchant-presented QR code use cases to enable digital payment. QR Codes are two-dimensional machine-readable barcodes, used to facilitate mobile payments at the point-of-sale.

Visa and the other EMVCo members worked to develop these new globally interoperable EMV specifications. Visa, a global payments technology firm, has already successfully enabled the merchant-presented QR technology in 15 countries around the world, with India, Kenya and Nigeria currently live in market with both bank and merchant partners, the firm said in a statement yesterday.

"We’ve already seen tremendous progress towards adoption of standardised, interoperable QR code payment systems in the developing world,” said Sam Shrauger, the senior vice president for digital products at Visa. "We are working with governments and central banks in countries like India to develop and implement QR code payment solutions that provide the convenience and security that are synonymous with Visa and help the journey toward a cashless future.” Supporting POS merchants

The global payments tech firm has enabled the growth of merchant-presented QR code payments around the world with its innovative mobile payments solution, mVisa. mVisa allows consumers to pay for goods and services by scanning a QR code on a smart phone or entering a merchant number into their feature phones.

"Payment goes straight from the consumer’s Visa account into the merchant’s account and provides real-time notification to both parties. mVisa is completely interoperable, meaning that the consumer and the merchant do not need to be customers of the same bank,” the official added in the statement. This brings the same convenience, security and reliability provided by the trusted Visa brand. Driving a cashless future

As digital payments help continue a shift toward a cashless future, this new global specification is an important step that promotes interoperability and standardises the fast growing ecosystem of QR code payments across the world. Already, 33 banks and over 328,000 merchants in India, Kenya and Nigeria have adopted the interoperable standards as they accelerate their QR code digital payment programmes.

"mVisa enables successful completion of the transaction independent of the mobile operator service on both the consumer and the merchants phone, and the consumers and merchant’s banks” said Shrauger. "This addresses a major challenge with mobile money programmes, and lets consumers and merchants choose their own bank or mobile operator.” The firm plans to replicate this success in 12 other countries where mVisa has been enabled, including Egypt, Ghana, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Rwanda, Tanzania, Thailand, Uganda and Vietnam, Shrauger added at the launch in San Francisco, in the US.