Samsung and Visa have launched a global partnership over mobile payments in order to increase the use of NFC and smartphones as payment devices.

Called the Visa Mobile Provisioning Service, it is a means for financial institutions planning to use mobile payments to quickly and securely download account info to NFC-capable Samsung phones.

In reality, this means we should hopefully see an increased take-up of Visa contactless payment systems by banks and businesses. The first time we set eyes on Samsung's NFC payments system was around the Olympics last year, when Samsung and Visa first trialled the tech.

“Samsung has been a pioneer in NFC devices and is again leading the way in enabling NFC-based mobile payments," said Won-Pyo Hong, president and head of media solution centre, Samsung Electronics. "The partnership with Visa represents a step towards a global mobile payment platform.” 

This is the first time a smartphone company and a major payment network have collaborated over something like NFC and should in theory make contactless payments much more commonplace. At the moment, NFC payments remain a bit of a rarity in the UK, so this could change things.

Samsung has been awarded a global licence to use Visa's payWave mobile app and should start loading it on to all future NFC-capable Samsung smartphones. This could mean that the Galaxy S4 is the phone to push contactless payments properly into the mainstream.