V.me is Visa Europe's answer to PayPal and Google Wallet, and the company has confirmed that it will be launching the service in the UK in autumn this year. It will allow consumers to store the details of several cards, not just Visa-branded, in their own digital wallet, which can then be used with online stores and mobile phone NFC payments.

Other cards supported include Mastercard, American Express and Discover. As they will all reside in the same account, the check-out process online is made much more simple.

Pocket-lint brought you news that Visa Europe was looking to release its own digital wallet back in October last year, citing an August/September 2012 launch date, and this official confirmation suggests that we were spot on with the timing.

Visa Europe is convinced that V.me will play a major part in the credit card company's strategy going ahead. "V.me sits at the heart of Visa’s future of payments," said Mariano Dima, executive vice-president of Product and Marketing Solutions.

"Our intention is that V.me will ultimately be able to incorporate any or all of our new payment technologies, allowing our members to deliver the best possible payments experience whether face to face, online or in a mobile environment. This comprehensive service suite, delivered under the V.me umbrella, will offer an easy way to benefit from the scale, security and reliability of Visa."

At present, e-commerce represents 22 per cent of Visa Europe's transactions and is expected to rise rapidly over the next couple of years.

Would you sign up to V.me? Can it break PayPal's stranglehold over the market? Let us know in the comments below...