Palm, VeriFone Working On IR Financial Tranactions

Palm Inc. and Hewlett-Packard's VeriFone division have agreed to work together to create infrared payment technology for handhelds. In the short term, they will work together to permit the secure transfer of financial and payment info from a Palm to a VeriFone point of sale (POS) payment terminal using IR, and then onto existing financial institutions' payment networks. Long term, they want Palm handhelds to access third party content through VeriFone payment terminals.

"We expect this solution to replace the standard credit card swipe with an elegant, secure electronically-authorized transaction," said Doug Solomon, chief strategy officer of Palm, Inc. "Imagine the time savings and simplification of receipt management and expense tracking when an electronic purchase confirmation gets loaded directly into your handheld while the merchant puts your purchases into bags. No more wallets bulging with paper receipts that need to be entered into a expense program later. Through our work with VeriFone, we also expect to offer physical and online merchants a new way to enhance the customer's experience with access to new, useful content through their Internet-enabled VeriFone POS terminal."