Rogers Looks to Launch Digital Wallets and Virtual Credit Cards

By: Talha Bhatti  |   September 26th, 2012   |   Business, Mobile Apps, News, O Canada, Smartphones

The Canadian Telecommunication giant, Rogers, has made public plans to launch a virtual wallet that will contain a credit card. The news confirms the continued push into the mobile payments category for the Canadian Wireless service provider.

 

Nadir Mohamed, CEO for Rogers, gave a speech at the Canadian Club in Montreal and then spoke with Postmedia News about the new service. The CEO was not forthcoming about any date for start of the service bust did say that, “There’s no question that when we launch our credit card, it will also be one of the first credit cards on your virtual wallet.” He also predicted that smartphones will be commonly used as digital wallets within the next five years. He explained further, “Today your wireless device is already your phone, your camera, your computer. Tomorrow it will be your virtual wallet, a safe and secure platform that uses the SIM card inside your NFC-enabled device to safely manage all of your information.”

 

Nadir was very positive about the prospects of other wireless devices and mentioned that he foresees that payments for water meter, parking meters, digital chalkboards, and medical equipment would all be done through smartphones. The CEO made a bold prediction that the market would be a major income source and that by 2015 would grow to $400 million in annual revenue. Rogers has a lot to gain from the technology because it has 9.4 million subscribers, making it Canada’s largest wireless company.

 

There may be some road blocks due to the slow adoption of NFC, which will be the basis for smartphone payments. Currently BlackBerry and Android devices support NFC but Apple has not yet jumped into the game. The iPhone is a major seller globally and the California based company does not believe that the NFC technology has gained wide acceptance.

 

Source: TechVibes

Photo: Future Shop