New technology allows BlackBerry phones to double up as credit cards

BlackBerry users will soon be able to charge purchases at the cash register to their Visa cards using technology incorporated in the company's new smartphone models.Research In Motion says that Visa had given the go ahead for its credit card system to work using the smartphone maker's encrypted mobile payment technology. The technology allows secure linkage of BlackBerrys to bank accounts and credit cards. The announcement makes RIM an early mover in the growing market for mobile payments, which was still in its infancy.

RIM's payment technology allows customers to use their smartphones like bank cards, for making payments for items by holding the phones up to a sales terminal for the transaction to be processed.The phone would incorporate a feature that would make it identical to chips implanted in credit cards.According to Geoffrey MacGillivray, manager of services security and payments at RIM, any place which could be tapped with a credit card could now tap mobile phones.

Visa's approval builds on a partnership between RIM and Canada's three biggest wireless networks through their EnStream joint venture. The network also formed part of the security infrastructure that would make the payment method work at checkouts.The EnStream agreement would allow RIM to manage security credentials for SIM cards in BlackBerrys and devices running both Google's Android and Windows operating systems.

Meanwhile, the company is helping customers make the switch to its soon-to-be-launched BlackBerry 10 smartphones that it hoped would help it reclaim market share from rivals such as Apple.RIM is betting on the new range of touchscreen and keyboard devices, to launch on 30 January to revive its fortunes.According to Bryan Lee, senior enterprise accounts director, the company was very enthused by the engagement and response to its customer base to a programme aimed at persuading them to adopt the BlackBerry 10 devices.

Indeed, whether this would help in regaining market share would depend on the response from RIM's top clients, like companies and government agencies, who have long valued the strong security features that BlackBerry devices offered. Lee said over 1,600 customers in North America had registered for its recently launched BlackBerry 10 Ready Program and there were over a 1000 active users of the programme, which offered customers access to services, information and tools to ease their transition to the BlackBerry 10 and the BlackBerry Enterprise Server 10. RIM further said its BlackBerry Enterprise Server 10, which ran the new devices on corporate networks, was in beta testing over 130 major government agencies and corporations in North America.