Payment processor Visa Europe is taking another step toward making mobile payments mainstream.

As a part of his keynote speech at the EFMA Cards and Payment Conference in Paris, France, Visa Europe Chief Executive Peter Ayliffe announced a new service, Visa Mobile Person-to-Person. The new service lets registered users in Europe send funds to Visa cardholders straight from their mobile.

In a separate press release from Visa Europe, the company said Visa Mobile Person-to-Person (P2P) payments are made through an app that lets users send money to an address book contact, a mobile phone number, or to a specific Visa card number, even if the recipient is not a registered user of the service.

At the moment, Visa Europe said the app is only available as an English-language app for Android phones and only supports single currency transactions, but support for other mobile operating systems, multiple currencies and payments to and within non-European countries will be added soon.

“The way we pay is changing, driven by the rapid uptake of new technologies and growing consumer demand for more flexible payments," Ayliffe said in the press release.

Ayliffe also said that today's news is the first in a series of new products and services that Visa Europe will be launching and said the arrival of mainstream NFC technologies, advanced loyalty and e-commerce services, and the launch of a new digital wallet would be coming in the next few months.

Visa Europe also said the new P2P service is the first of many new services that are being developed through the partnership with Monitise it announced earlier this year.

Along with the P2P service, Visa Europe announced a mobile banking tool called Visa Alerts that lets registered Visa cardholders track their purchases and cash withdrawals through notifications.

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