Visa Europe has announced major improvements to its mobile payment service Visa Personal Payments, including support for multiple currencies and "immediate payment" functionality. The pending upgrades will let customers make instant person-to-person payments to any Visa cardholder in Europe, in any European currency, just by using a mobile phone.

"Mobile payments have the potential to fundamentally change the way that people pay and are paid," said Visa Europe senior vice president Sandra Alzetta. "The new multi-currency and immediate payments features combine the convenience of mobile device use with the ability to send money to 460 million Visa cardholders across Europe, solving a problem that millions of consumers face every day — giving money to another individual easily and securely."

With multiple currency support, payments can be sent and received across borders, simplifying international money transfers. The feature will be available by the end of this year.

Immediate payments settles funds to a recipient's Visa account almost in real-time, with availability within 30 minutes. The feature will launch in the U.K. this week.

Visa Personal Payments now available from 17 card issuers across Europe. RBS and NatWest launched services in the U.K. last week and the app has already been downloaded by 1.7 million consumers, Visa Europe said.

The service allows anyone with a Visa-branded card — from debit to credit to reloadable prepaid — to accept payments from another Visa card. Users needn't share accounte details to make a transaction. Senders simply need to register for the Visa Personal Payments service and know the mobile phone number or Visa card number of the person they are sending a payment to.

The transaction itself is made using a smartphone app offered by the sender’s card issuing bank. Money recipients do not need to register for the Visa Personal Payments service. All they need is a Visa card and access to the Internet to submit some basic details.

Read more about money transfer/P2P services.