O2 Names Financial Services Partners
19 May 2011 10:05 
Corporate
Wave Crest, FIS, Intelligent Environments and Visa Europe to power mobile wallet service launching later this year
O2 today confirmed some of the leading financial services players it will work with to launch its mobile wallet service during the second half of 2011. Wave Crest, FIS™, Intelligent Environments and Visa Europe have all been appointed to deliver the payments and processing systems upon which O2’s next phase of financial services products will be based.
O2 has committed to launching a mobile wallet service during the second half of 2011 which will start the process of taking the contents of the physical wallet and putting them on a mobile phone. Capabilities planned for the wallet include m-commerce, airtime top ups, contactless / NFC payments and peer-to-peer payments. Although the service will launch solely under the O2 Money brand, O2 will be working with a number of leading technical and financial services specialists to ensure the best possible customer experience.
In the coming months O2 will also re-launch its successful prepaid Visa card product with contactless capabilities. The new O2 Money prepaid cards will also operate on the platform and systems provided by these new partners. Existing O2 Money customers will be given the opportunity to be migrated to the new platform and be issued the new contactless prepaid cards.
Global epayments provider Wave Crest will provide and operate the core banking platform upon which the new prepaid card and mobile wallet services will run. Wave Crest’s eMoney platform is a flexible and highly integrated service, ideally suited for prepaid and stored value financial services products. Wave Crest will also manage the security and online customer experience.
FIS, the world’s largest provider of banking and payments technology, will provide transaction processing and UK-based customer service for both the prepaid cards and mobile wallet.
Intelligent Environments has been appointed to develop the wallet application which will be compatible with a wide range of mobile devices. Intelligent Environments is a digital banking provider and part of the Parseq Group.
Finally, Visa Europe will be the payment network for the wallet and new prepaid products building on the successful relationship between the two companies which began with the launch of O2 Money in 2009.
“These partnerships take us another step closer to the launch of commercial mobile wallet services,” said James Le Brocq, Managing Director, Financial Services at O2. “We are working with the best partners in their respective fields to bring a high quality service to market under the O2 Money banner. We look forward to unveiling additional partners in the coming months.”
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Notes to Editors:
About Wave Crest
Wave Crest is a global e-payments company that turns payments into a powerful tool to drive company growth. We provide fresh thinking and customized payment solutions which our clients leverage to become more profitable, operate with greater competitive differentiation and address strategic business objectives. Our one-stop global shop includes pre-paid card issuing, program management, acquiring and specialized processing. Wave Crest is based in Gibraltar and has fully owned subsidiaries in the U.S. and Isle of Man.
For more information, visit www.wavecrest.gi
About FIS
FIS (NYSE: FIS) is the world’s largest global provider dedicated to banking and payments technologies. With a long history deeply rooted in the financial services sector, FIS serves more than 14,000 institutions in over 100 countries. Headquartered in Jacksonville, Fla., FIS employs more than 32,000 people worldwide and holds leadership positions in payment processing and banking solutions, providing software, services and outsourcing of the technology that drives financial institutions. FIS is ranked 426 on the Fortune 500, is a member of Standard & Poor’s 500® Index and consistently holds a leading ranking in the annual FinTech 100 list. For more information about FIS, visit www.fisglobal.com.
Marcia Danzeisen, +1 904.854.5083 Mary Waggoner, +1 904.854.3282
Senior Vice President Senior Vice President
FIS Global Marketing and Communications FIS Investor Relations
marcia.danzeisen@fisglobal.com mary.waggoner@fisglobal.com
About Intelligent Environments
Intelligent Environments is now part of the Parseq plc group. Intelligent Environments provides full digital banking solutions to the financial services industry. It combines its market-leading digital banking system, NetFinance and its award winning mobile banking platform, mobinetic to offer a full digital banking solution across multiple channels.
The Company is listed on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market and its symbol is PSQ for search purposes.
For further details, please visit www.ie.com
For Press Enquiries, please contact Nicola Koronka at Hotwire ie@hotwirepr.com.
About Visa Europe
In Europe, there are 427 million Visa debit, credit and commercial cards. In the 12 months ending December 2010 those cards were used to make purchases and cash withdrawals to the value of €1.6 trillion. 12.5% of consumer spending at point of sale in Europe is with a Visa card, and more than 70% of that is on Visa debit cards.
Visa Europe is owned and operated by more than 4,000 European member banks and was incorporated in July 2004. In October 2007, Visa Europe became independent of the new global Visa Inc., with an exclusive, irrevocable and perpetual licence in Europe. As a dedicated European payment system it is able to respond quickly to the specific market needs of European banks and their customers - cardholders and retailers - and to meet the European Commission’s objective to create a true internal market for payments.
Visa enjoys unsurpassed acceptance around the world. In addition, Visa/PLUS is one of the world’s largest global ATM networks, offering cash access in local currency in over 200 countries.
For more information, visit www.visaeurope.com
Media contact: Abbie Ferdinando, Ph: +44 (0) 207 795 5291
For more information contact:
- Telefónica UK Limited is a leading communications company for consumers and businesses in the UK, with 22.2 million mobile customers and 800,000 fixed broadband customers as at 30 September 2011.
- Telefónica UK Limited is part of Telefónica Europe plc, a business division of Telefónica S.A. which uses O2 as its commercial brand in the UK, Ireland, Slovakia, Germany and the Czech Republic, and has 57.8 million customers across these markets.
- In 2006 Telefónica Europe acquired Be, the UK fixed broadband provider, and in October 2007 O2 launched its broadband service using the Be network.
- O2 is the naming rights partner of The O2, the world-class entertainment venue.
- O2 employs around 11,000 people in the UK and has 450 retail stores.
- In October 2010 O2 was voted the UK’s best mobile network by the readers of both What Mobile and Mobile Choice magazines.
- O2 was ranked highest in customer satisfaction for both UK mobile and fixed broadband customers according to the J.D. Power and Associates UK Mobile and Fixed Broadband Studies 2010.
- O2’s UK 2G mobile network provides voice and data services to 99% of the UK’s population.
- O2’s UK 3G (HSPA+ 900 / 2100 MHz) network currently provides voice and high speed data services of up to 14.4Mbps (21Mbps in the coming months) to over 84% of the UK population.
- O2 was the first UK operator to deploy a 4G/LTE trial network which has demonstrated peak speeds of over 100Mbps to a mobile device.
- Telefónica Europe also owns 50% of Tesco Mobile, which operates in the UK and Ireland, and 50% of Tchibo Mobilfunk in Germany.