The need for Visa Europe to push ahead urgently with the widespread introduction of mobile wallet and payment technology was brought home by CEO Nicolas Huss in the credit card giant’s 2013 Year in Review report.

“As a matter of the utmost priority, I am working with the product and technology teams on ways to accelerate mass deployment. The implementation process must be effectively industrialised,” wrote Huss.

Visa Europe has built a range of next-generation payment solutions including mobile and digital wallet V.me which has launched in France, Spain and the UK, as well as being trialled in Poland.

“This is a pivotal moment for our company,” he said.

There is pressure on big players such as Visa to move from building products and forming alliances to actually deploying next-generation payment technology on the ground.

Huss mentioned it as one of Visa Europe’s top priorities in a section headlined ‘Bring more certainty and scale to our next generation payment solutions’.

“This is fundamental,” he wrote.

Elsewhere in the annual review, the credit card firm said there are now 70 NFC-enabled smartphones available which can make payments at Visa payWave contactless terminals in locations such as retailers.

There are also 40 Visa payWave for mobile programmes live in Europe, it said.

Visa Europe also said that 23 per cent of spending via its cards was now online, although it did not breakout whether this included spend by mobile users.