LOUISVILLE, KY - Visa Inc. and Visa Europe announced earlier this week that it has certified NFC-enabled smartphones from Samsung, LG Electronics, and Research in Motion (RIM) for use with Visa payWave, its mobile payments application, Mobile Payments Today reports.

"This is an important step for Visa, its financial institution partners and the mobile industry," said Bill Gajda, Global Head of Mobile Products, Visa Inc. "In addition to issuing plastic magnetic stripe or chip-enabled payment cards, financial institutions can now consider offering their account holders a way to transform their smartphones into fully-functional mobile payment devices."

Among the devices certified are the Samsung Galaxy SII, LG Optimus NET NFC and several BlackBerry devices like the Bold 9900 and Bold 9790.

Visa said the certified devices host the Visa payWave application on a secure SIM card and that certification will encourage other mobile device manufacturers to offer Visa mobile payment functionality to consumers.

Visa said Visa payWave on mobile devices is compatible with existing payment terminals using NFC technologies, and that its certification confirms the interoperability of devices with the existing payments ecosystem.