November 3rd, 2008 by Sarah
Wallets don’t mix with skinny jeans, and since we hope cargo pants won’t be back anytime soon, we’re eagerly anticipating m-commerce.
Spurred by a generation used to paying with a click, mobile payment systems are in high demand Stateside. And thanks to the emergence of Near Field Communications and other innovative solutions, it won’t be long before we get them.
Just in the last week of October, both Visa (San Francisco) and New York-based Citi’s Mobile Money Ventures (MMV) announced the rollout of initiatives designed to enhance the banking functionality of people’s mobile phones.
Visa has a pilot program in Canada (through the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) and Rogers Wireless ) that lets users wave and pay for goods at the point of sale using their mobile phones.
Pilot participants will be issued specially equipped, near-field communications-enabled Motorola mobile phones that can simply be waved at Visa payWave-enabled checkout readers at select retail stores and fast food restaurants in Toronto’s downtown.
Citibank Hong Kong is letting customers perform mobile banking or stock trading using MMV’s m-banking platform, which is independent of device and network.
Among the features that Hong Kong customers can use are account inquiry and management, funds transfers, payments and time deposit accounts. Also available is stock trading, including buying and selling, pending order management, stock quotes and portfolio management.
Meanwhile, some smaller fish are figuring out alternate ways to enable mobile payments using existing (and widely used) mobile technology:
Tagattitude uses the voice function of phones for secure payment through a technology called Near Sound Data Transfer—NSDT. The two phones establish an audio channel, go through a series of questions and then transfer money from one account to another. Here is a video of the mobile payment in action (WARNING: it may cause dizziness and motion sickness.)
Anam Mobile SMS Money Transfer allows users to send money to another person using standard text messaging. After both parties subscribe to the service, subscriber A can send money to subscriber B with a standard text and then both subscribers receive texts back when the money has been transferred.
PocketFuzz equips cash-only retailers at festivals, venues, and concerts with their simple SMS-based payment solution that works with any major card or bank, any carrier, and any phone. A buyer’s text along with their personalized secure 4 digit PIN completes a secure transaction in mere seconds. Charges appear on users credit card or bank statements just as any other purchase would. First time users can set-up their account online or using a call back method.
At the end of the day, we just want to dial up a Big Mac. And we don’t think we should have to move to Japan to do it.
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