Clarks, the U.K.-based shoe retailer, will allow customers to make online purchases using the V.me by Visa digital wallet service, Visa Europe and WorldPay announced.

Visa Europe is a payments technology business owned and operated by member banks and other payment service providers from 36 countries across Europe, according to a news release. Since 2004, it has been independent of Visa Inc. and incorporated in the U.K. Both companies work in partnership to enable global Visa payments.

WorldPay, an independent global provider of payment and risk services, is a unification of seven retail payment solutions and offers a range of services, including mobile payments.

Clarks has more than 500 stores throughout the U.K. and the Republic of Ireland, and sells more than 50 million pairs of shoes worldwide annually through a multichannel experience, according to the release. Offering consumers secure and convenient ways to pay is a key part of its plan to build online sales, the company said, and V.me by Visa will support that goal by removing the need to enter card details, making it faster, easier and more secure for customers to make a payment.

V.me by Visa, the new digital wallet service developed by Visa Europe, will be offered to consumers by leading banks and will be available across Europe with an expected rollout in the U.K. and Spain by the end of the year, with other markets to follow.

"The retail community is incredibly important to us, and we've designed V.me by Visa to improve sales for retailers and improve the customer experience," Duncan Olby, senior vice president, Visa Europe, said in the release. "V.me by Visa is fully optimized for mobile e-commerce, is easy to use and gives shoppers confidence and peace of mind when they pay online because we shield their card details."

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