Four of Europe's biggest mobile phone operators
are inviting other mobile phone companies worldwide to join an
association aimed at establishing global standards for payments
made with wireless devices.
Vodafone, France's Orange, Spain's Telefónica Móviles and
Germany's T-Mobile International have launched the Mobile Payment
Services Association (MPSA) in the hope of developing a system that
allows mobile phone customers to purchase goods and services with
mobile devices across all mobile operator networks, the four
companies said Wednesday in a statement. Hutchison 3G and mmO2, KPN
Mobile of the Netherlands and TMN of Portugal have already
expressed interest in joining the association.
The initiative will establish a payment scheme that allows
mobile phone customers to make low-priced purchases through mobile
operator-managed accounts and create an easier, more secure way to
make both smaller and larger purchases using mobile phones together
with credit and debit cards, said association chief executive
officer Tim Jones.
The lack of standards for mobile payments has hindered the
mobile commerce market. Interoperability is a crucial issue, Jones
said, pointing to the SMS market as an example. Once operators
agreed to interoperability standards to send and receive text
messages across their networks, SMS boomed. Until a number of
operators use a single payment solution, a barrier will exist to
mass-market adoption of m-commerce, he added.
The association will continue some of the ground-breaking work
begun by T-Mobile and Vodafone, which early last year teamed to
start work on an industrywide mobile payment initiative, according
to Janine Young, a spokeswoman for Vodafone. "This is taking our
earlier initiative one step further by opening the door to all
operators," she said. "The association will look at all the various
mobile payment solutions on the market. There is no
exclusivity."
One of the members in the new association, Telefónica Móviles,
is also a founding member of Mobipay, a mobile payment initiative
launched in Spain that includes three other local mobile operators
and several big Spanish banks.
Operators outside Europe are warmly welcomed. "Although we are
launching the initiative in Europe, we are definitely interested in
bringing on board as many operators from Asia and the U.S. as
possible," he said. "Three of the founding members have substantial
operations in the Americas and Asia."
At a glance, the payment scheme initiated by T-Mobile and
Vodafone resembles in large part what the new association hopes to
achieve; a system that enables users, for instance, to store
personal details and preferred payment options in their mobile
phones and then choose what payment they wish to use to purchase
goods. Payment options include direct payment to a monthly bill,
debits from a prepaid account or from a stored value account
controlled by a mobile operator or credit and debit cards.
Much of MPSA's standardisation efforts will concentrate on
defining interface specifications and messaging formats. MPSA will
work closely with the GSM Association, which represents the
interests of mobile operators using Global Service for Mobile
Communications technology, the European Institute for
Telecommunications Standards (ETSI) and other standards bodies in
Europe and abroad.