NEW YORK (AP) — Visa Inc. on Wednesday said it launched mobile services that will allow banks that issue cards bearing its name to offer their customers the ability to monitor their accounts on mobile devices. The services will also enable fund transfers between accounts and transaction alerts.
Eventually, mobile check deposit, mobile payments and Visa's "digital wallet" called "V.me" will also be included, the San Francisco-based company said.
The announcement came at the same time Visa reported a 16 percent profit growth for its fiscal first quarter, which ended Dec. 31. During a conference call to discuss the quarterly results, CEO Joseph Saunders discussed the company's mobile strategies.
Saunders said V.me is a "top priority" for the company, and is being tested with about 1,000 of its own employees and certain partners. It will expand in coming weeks, and is expected to be available broadly this year. Visa is also working with merchants to get them to accept mobile payments.
The company is also investing in mobile money products outside the U.S., he said, and its Fundamo unit inked deals in several countries during the quarter. Visa also launched a service in Africa that enables mobile phone users to access a prepaid account using their phone, in conjunction with one of the continent's largest telecommunications providers.
QUESTION: Regarding your comments about Fundamo and your investments in mobile money, could what you're doing there influence your relationship with Western Union in any way?
ANSWER: (CEO Joseph Saunders) I don't think that there's an absolute connection between Fundamo and Western Union and the Western Union type of business. I think Fundamo is an incredible part of our future. I think that using mobile technology as an access point to Visa prepaid cards in emerging economies, where there's a lot of underbanked people, is just one of the most incredible things that I've seen coming along in quite some time.
As it relates to money transfer and Western Union, we are much more heavily involved with Western Union today and will be in 2012 than we really ever have been before, and we're doing a number of things with them as it relates to money transfer in some of the emerging economies.



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