Portugal Telecom pilots m-payment program
Portugal Telecom announced a new mobile wallet program open to all of its 11,000 employees. The pilot is interesting in that it features a range of mobile payments technologies at the point of sale, including NFC, QR codes and text messages. The effort will run for three months and is a precursor to a larger rollout sometime this year.
The pilot program is an attempt by PT to assess the viability of mobile payments as well as which technologies are more reliable and how consumers and businesses respond to them, the company said.
"This is a very important project because it will help us gain a better understanding of the technology that has been appearing on the market, including NFC, and of how people interact with these new technologies and with the possibility to pay via mobile phone," said Tiago Silva Lopes, head of PT's multi-platform data and content department.
The wallet was developed by PT's internet subsidiary SAPO. According to SAPO's CTO Celso Martinho the project presented some challenges on security and usability, but presented plenty of learning opportunities as well.
"We have two major goals with the project," Martinho said in the announcement. "On the one hand, to test all the technology we have built over the past few months and learn from it, and secondly, we want to understand what the barriers that users will have with this pilot and dramatically improve all aspects related to the usability of the pilot."
To access the wallet program, users simply register at PT's tmn wallet site to create a virtual wallet. A balance can then be loaded into prepaid accounts from various sources like credit cards, bank accounts or PayPal.
To pay for merchandise using their phones, participants have several options. They can choose NFC, using NFC-enabled phones on contactless terminals, scan QR codes presented on screens at the point of sale, or even send a text to a special number to receive a code they can enter on the terminal. All transactions are PIN protected and all payment data is fully encrypted.
PT said the wallet provides several advantages over other payment methods for both consumers and merchants. Consumers can dispense with cash and coins, conduct faster transactions and use any type of mobile device to make payments. Merchants can lower costs associated with handling money, PT said.
The pilot program already has several partners including retailers Torrine, Fruit Simple, ICA and Solnave, plus technology partners Huawei and Incard, the company said.