Visa launches digital wallet

MANILA, Philippines - Visa International has launched a digital wallet commercially in the US. The wallet, known as V.me, will become available for physical payments at point-of-sale (POS) locations in 2013. Visa said the addressable market for V.me is now up to 55 million US cardholders via these institutions which leaves room for it to strike more relationships to expand the digital wallet’s reach further in the US market. The credit card firm has also signed up 23 online merchants who will accept V.me. The digital wallet will free online and mobile shoppers from having to input their financial details every time they make a purchase. Instead, once they have signed up to Visa’s service, they can checkout using just a username and password. Other players in the US digital wallet market are American Express, MasterCard and PayPal.