Vodafone Mobile Wallet To Launch Next Year

Mobile operator Vodafone has agreed a deal with CorFire to bring the South Korean company’s CorPay mobile wallet product to its customers.

CorFire’s “brandable, white-label mobile platform” will be rolled out to users in Spain and Germany in the first quarter of 2013 ahead of a wider European launch.

CorPay works in both a Near Field Communication (NFC) and non-NFC environment and can be used to pay for products, to redeem vouchers and to access buildings and transit systems.

Vodafone mobile wallet

CorPay has been expanding its operations in the mobile payment sector and has signed similar partnership agreements with the likes of Google and Dunkin Donuts in the last 18 months.

“Vodafone’s customer base spans across more than 30 countries, which means our partnership may become one of the biggest, global implementations of NFC and mobile commerce,” said Dr. Jae Chung, CorFire’s president and CEO. “We applaud Vodafone’s efforts to make mobile commerce a reality in markets which are increasingly relying on smartphones to conduct regular daily activities.”

Vodafone says that the deal will assist it in its goal of eliminating the need for physical wallets through the delivery of “comprehensive digital mobile media solutions.”

“We are committed to partnering with the best suppliers to offer customers the speed, simplicity and convenience of managing everyday transactions with a single wave or tap of their smartphones,” said Christian Wirtz, Vodafone Group’s mCommerce Director. “The consumer benefits of contactless payments are obvious and the industry in Europe is now at the beginning of rolling out a contactless infrastructure. The potential of mobile to transform existing industries – such as financial services, retail and transport – is enormous.”

Vodafone is one of the partners involved with the Project Oscar mobile wallet joint-venture and has also agreed a deal to bring the MasterCard PayPass-powered iPhone NFC mobile wallet to the UK.

How much do you know about smartphones? Take our quiz!