Microsoft’s Mobile Payments Service Is Coming “Soon”

Microsoft could be gearing up to take on the likes of Apple Pay and Android Pay with the relaunch of its own mobile wallet service, a senior company executive has said.

Speaking to The Verge, Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore said that the company will look to have its Microsoft Wallet payment solution up and running soon, and that it will be focused around its Windows 10-powered mobile devices.

“Windows is going to have a wallet concept. You’ve seen it on phones before. We’re going to continue to iterate it,” Belfiore, who is Microsoft’s vice president and manager for the Windows Phone programme management, said. “We’re going to think about the range of payment scenarios.”

Microsoft Pay?

Belfiore also hinted that the new service would utilise Windows Hello, the company’s facial-recognition software, as part of the authentication process to carry out payments, calling it a good example of the “kind of technology we’ll build into devices for authentication to make… payments better.”

However he was keen to point out that developing a mobile payment service was not an easy task, but, “one of these things that is a massive network of complexity.”

“I think the biggest challenge is, What effect will cause enough of the right things to align that you’ll get a good experience with all the places that you want it to happen in? And that’s kind of a world problem,” Belfiore said.

The new service should also utilise NFC technology, similar to Apple Pay, having been included in the Wallet for Windows Phone 8.1 app, which unfortunately was not a major success.

Recent research by payments specialists Skrill found that digital wallets have enjoyed a major surge in popularity and are now used by more than half of all UK online shoppers whenever they purchase goods online.

Overall, 54 percent of UK consumers said they often or always used digital wallets such as PayPal, Google Wallet, or Square, to shop and pay.

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