Mobile banking and payment services provider ClairMail Inc. has signed a development and deployment agreement with Visa Inc., which claims to be the world’s largest retail electronic payments network.

The deal allows ClairMail to integrate Visa mobile services into the mobile banking and payments infrastructure that ClairMail provides to financial institutions. ClairMail bank customers who are also Visa clients can take advantage of Visa’s mobile services by adding them to an existing mobile banking deployment and creating a more comprehensive mobile banking offering.

“This development and distribution agreement provides our current bank customers a direct connection from the ClairMail platform to Visa for services such as offers, mobile payments and transactions, as well as real-time alerts and notifications,” Joe Salesky, founder/chairman/chief strategy officer of ClairMail, Novato, CA.

“This is also very important for our new customers, because ClairMail comes out of the box with a direct connection to the value-added mobile services Visa can drive,” he said. “This will help banks enhance the relationship with their customers.

“This is not just about the information flowing to the customer, it’s really about that ability to establish a dialogue with customers and provide another context for the bank to inform them about its other products, with tailored merchant offers also being another piece.”

Visa Inc. specializes in processing services and payment-product platforms. This includes consumer credit, debit, prepaid and commercial payments, which are offered under the Visa, Visa Electron, Interlink and PLUS brands.

Visa mobile services include applications that support mobile payments, tailored merchant offers and near-real-time transaction alerts and notifications.

ClairMail is a provider of mobile services for banking, payments and card services. Financial institutions of all sizes can now manage customer interactions through the use of actionable alerts, workflows and touch across multiple mobile channels, all via a single integrated platform.

The agreement with Visa adds new functionality to ClairMail’s mobile banking and payments platform and is designed to expand the value of ClairMail services to its bank customers.

The ClairMail platform provides end users with comprehensive mobile banking and payments functionality, optimizing user experience across any delivery method—SMS, email, mobile Web or smart client application.

The ClairMail platform also delivers alerting capabilities that let users conduct transactions and respond to or resolve account activity within the mobile channel.

“We’re working very closely with Visa, and this is an important opportunity for both parties,” Mr. Salesky said. “Both of us are very committed to working with the customers and deploying these services to issuers.

“We already have the industry-leading adoption overall and our goal is 100 adoption,” he said. “Visa and ClairMail provide real-time transaction information and valuable content types for one-on-one customer relationship that banks want to continue to deliver.

“This provides a terrific level of engagement to all bank customers.”