Visa rolls out new resources to boost payment app development
Visa evidently wants to get as many e-commerce and mobile payment applications out the door as possible, made clear by the launch of the new Visa Developer Center.
The online resource center is primarily designed to offer developers concentrating on the e-commerce and mobile market with the tools they would need to produce and deploy apps at a "rapid" pace.
Specific resources include access to SDKs, payment expertise, open APIs, simplified documentation, and tools offered by Visa subsidiaries (primarily Authorize.Net, CyberSource, and PlaySpan) for the purpose of integrating Visa payment functionality into their apps.
Basically, this will all tie into working with Visa’s digital wallet solution. Furthermore, Visa is introducing V.me, the new acceptance mark for its digital wallet that will solidify the brand and expand its digital payments solutions even further. Somehow, V.me lets shoppers pay without sharing their card account information at the point-of-sale.
In a way, that method sounds a bit reminiscent of Square's idea of setting up tabs with merchants as well as PayPal's upcoming payments solution that can use a phone number for completing a transaction.
But Visa attests that V.me will offer a secure way for consumers to pay online as well as in person via PCs, tablets, or mobile devices using either Visa or non-Visa accounts. Payment methods consist of click-to-buy on a computer, touch-to-buy on a mobile browser, and wave-to-buy for physical point-of-sale NFC transactions.
V.me will also provide users with transaction alerts and the ability to receive real-time, personalized offers.
To get V.me rolling, Visa is also launching another open, beta developer program that will be initially offered for developing e-commerce payment apps. That resource center will equip developers with API credentials and access to a dedicated sandbox for testing.
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