Vodafone teams with France's Digital Virgo on payment processing

Vodafone Group PLC on Monday said it has entered a new partnership with payments company Digital Virgo, serving businesses in Europe and Africa.

The Newbury, England-based telecommunications provider will be working with Digital Virgo to speed up adoption of standardised open gateway network application programming interfaces.

This refers to a type of network architecture that has been designed to work across "different telecommunications operators, aggregators, cloud providers, and telcos", according the website of Telefonica SA.

Digital Virgo is a Lyon, France-based payment and distribution service specialist.

"By integrating operator-grade identity, authentication and fraud prevention capabilities into these systems, third-party providers can make smartphone payments more trusted, reduce friction and support new revenue opportunities," Vodafone explained.

Digital Virgo will incorporate Vodafone network APIs into the payment services it provides to about 300 merchants and 150 operators. It will also make these capabilities available to other organisations.

The partnership will start by covering Germany, Greece, Spain, South Africa and the UK, though there are plans to extend it more countries.

Johanna Wood, director of Network APIs at Vodafone, said: "Vodafone's partnership with Digital Virgo will make our secure network capabilities available to more enterprises through standardised APIs. As smartphones become the default way for people to shop and bank online, the network is playing a critical role in enabling trusted e-commerce services and increasing customer confidence."

Vodafone shares were up 0.4% to 126.25 pence each on Monday morning in London.

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