Visa, the electronic payment network, will launch its first commercial mobile phone-based contactless payment system in Malaysia on Thursday.

The rollout follows a series of successful trials over the past two years involving mobile phones based on the Near Field Communications (NFC) contactless technology which enables users to pay for goods and services simply by “waving” their handset close to a “reader”. Visa already make use of the same technology in its payWave contactless credit or debit cards.