A dozen major French companies have launched a trial to use cell phones as mobile money, according to the International Herald Tribune. The Payez Mobile consortium includes France’s three largest mobile operators, six major banks, Visa and MasterCard and cellphones made by Motorola, LG Electronics and Sagem Communication of Paris.
The group gave 1,000 people in Strasbourg and Caen mobile handsets outfitted with a short-range radio technology called “near-field communications,” or NFC. The technology is already familar to commuters in London, Paris and Hong Kong who pay their fares by swiping “contactless” programmed plastic cards over scanners embedded in turnstiles.
Previous, mall-scale trials run by industry participants across Europe have established that consumers are likely to embrace the convenience of mobile payment. The Payez Mobile consortium will road-rest how it works when different companies and their specific systems compete in a larger pool of users.
One drawback of the scheme is that adoption depends on whether handset manufacturers are prepared to include the technology in their devices.
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Depends how you define a mobile payment
In Estonia we have had the possibility to pay via a mobile phone (tied to various banks accounts) by calling a special number with a merchant-specific ending and your pin code since something like 4-5 years back, if not more. In 2004 about 50 thousand users out of a population of 1,35 million had the possibility to use that service, now it is of course more.
Currently 1695 merchants are listed as being able to accept the mobile payments. In many cases it is easier for them to accept mobile payments than to accept cards, so it works well for small shops etc in countryside.
Giving that Estonia is such a small place, I suppose you could consider the entire country to be a test market
Good insights, Jüri, thanks!
As you rightly say in the post it all depends on manufacturers integrating this technology into their mobiles, or perhaps more importantly getting them to agree an industry standard protocol as opposed to us ending up with Nokiapay and Vodamoney etc etc
In Estonia our national electonic ID card technology is now integrated into the mobile SIM cards, meaning we can use all the highest security public and private sector solutions over the mobile. Most probably many people in Estonia will vote in next elections also through their mobiles: much more secure and convenient than old methods.
Hi, I was just wondering if anyone has actually purchased an item with there mobile phone? and if so did they find it user friendly or does it still require a bit more work? also are there many risks involved or is just as safe as using the internet overall?
Depends what you call an item. Most Estonians pay for the parking with their mobile phones. Many buy lottery tickets, music etc.
To answer your question, Ceri, a lot of websites in Hungary use mobile phone payments as an alternative to the credit card. You execute payment by sending a text message to a premium number. These payments may be one-time or recurring.
Examples of services would be social networking and dating sites, movies, flowers and other small purchases.
I haven’t heard of any fraud. Certainly in Hungary, mobile payments are considered more secure. My online banking interface requires mobile confirmations for transactions, too.
Hope that’s useful to you.
Hi all, thanks for your replies, strangely enough I went away for the bank holiday and when parking I didn’t have any cash on me and there were no cash points near by, thankfully the meter had a telephone no on it for the option to pay with our mobile phone, any way, I got out my iphone (sorry have to boast) and gave it a blast and it worked a treat, otherwise knowing my luck I would have got a parking ticket. I also recently booked a bus ticket with my mobile phone and it worked perfect , you even get your ticket in a text message format which is handy, if you haven’t tried it yet try ordering something with your mobile phone it’s definitely user friendly, cost effective and time saving.