(iTers News) - Rogers announced today that its suretap wallet, the first mobile wallet from a carrier in Canada, will be available to customers in the coming weeks. suretap wallet will be available on select NFC-enabled smartphones and will offer a co-branded virtual Rogers Prepaid MasterCard and gift cards from select national retailers as the first cards available for download.

"The arrival of our mobile wallet is a major step towards our vision of a mobile experience, where Canadians will quickly and securely access cards they carry in their physical wallet on their smartphone," said David Robinson, Vice President of Emerging Business at Rogers. "We have built a strong foundation to deliver financial services and mobile commerce solutions, and we will continue to deliver mobile payments experiences that are beneficial for consumers and retailers across Canada."

Rogers has entered into various strategic relationships within the mobile payment industry, including officially joining forces with MasterCard Canada through a multi-year strategic agreement to support innovation and drive adoption of mobile payments technology across Canada. Through these initiatives, customers who download the suretap Wallet will have the ability to add a co-branded virtual Rogers Prepaid MasterCard that can be loaded with funds to use at their favourite retailers across Canada.

The suretap wallet will deliver a secure mobile payment experience, safely storing payment card information and passcodes on the secure SIM card in select NFC-enabled smartphones. Customers will have access to additional features within the suretap wallet including gifting of gift cards, reloading of prepaid cards, the ability to check account balances, view recent transactions and use location services to find contactless payment terminals nearby. In the near future, additional cards will become available for download including payment cards from multiple banks and payment networks and loyalty cards.

"We designed the suretap wallet to deliver a secure mobile payments experience, with an emphasis on the end user and features which enable our customers to take advantage of all the capabilities of today's smartphones," said Jeppe Dorff, Vice-President, Transaction Services. "We see this milestone as the first in a series of innovative transactional services we will be offering to our customers in the coming years".

Last year, Rogers facilitated the first point-of-sale mobile credit card transaction in Canada with CIBC, using the secure SIM card inside an NFC-enabled smartphone. Since then, Canadian's attitudes towards mobile payments have evolved. According to new Rogers commissioned research from Harris Decima, approximately one third of Canadian smartphone owners have made a mobile payment in the past year and the majority believe mobile payments will save them time in their day.