Visa Digital Commerce App Ready to Make Banks’ Foray Into Mobile Payments Easier

Mobile payments have caught on like wildfire across several industries. Retailers have increasingly embraced the notion, and mobile device providers actually led the way in many respects.

One notable laggard in the market is the banking industry, which has been struggling to get viable mobile payments material in the market and losing potential market share all the while.

Visa is looking to get these folks in the game with its new Visa Digital Commerce App, which should help speed up banks’ response to this new field.

The Visa Digital Commerce App allows an easy way for banks to offer a variety of worthwhile services, ranging from account balance information in real time to card controls to even fraud alerts, a point that customers have long been eager to get in play.

Since the app is a hosted service, it means that Visa will be doing much of the heavy lifting of maintenance and upgrades, while banks can offer up the services and take the credit.

So far, the app seems well received. Visa group executive Oliver Jenkyn commented “The Visa Digital Commerce App brings together a comprehensive set of services to empower financial institution clients of all sizes to quickly offer their own digital payment experience to cardholders, while keeping their brand and relationship with the cardholder front and center.”

With over 40 financial institutions in on the action, it’s an app that will likely gain quite a bit of ground as more banks figure it’s about time to get in on the action.

The problem here, however, is that banks are spectacularly late to the party. Retailers love mobile payments for the ability to process payments internally and open up data-based rewards programs. Mobile providers love the extra revenue stream.

So for banks to step in, they’ll need a really impressive value proposition to get users interested and out of other providers’ markets.

The banks have a long way to go and needed to get there a few months ago. With the Visa app in hand, however, they may have a means to play catchup effectively.

It will be a tight race, but the banks may have what it takes to grab a share of the market.