mPayment

May 2006: Juniper Research estimate that mPayment will be worth $88 billion by 2009, with 44% going on ticketing, but only $299 million on actual retail sales.
Japan, Korea, Austria, Croatia, Spain, Norway and Singapore lead the way in mPayments. In Vienna, some 7500 parking payments are made by phone every day, while in Croatia as much as 75% of local parking is by mPayment in some areas.
 
In Japan, 86 million Japanese own cell phones (70 percent of the population). Consumers buy 45 million cell phones a year, and newer models are laden with all kinds of functions, including navigation tools, video cameras, digital music players and a multitude of e-wallet features that limits the need for cash and credit cards. In Japan, the phone is the lifestyle manager and replacement of the 10 most common things you take with you every day including wallet, credit cards, ID, drivers' license, keys, etc. It's not unusual, for example, to see pedestrians sidle up to concert posters and use their mobile phones to read small bar codes. Magazine ads, publicity fliers and bus stops often have bar codes that allow mobile users to arrive at Web sites to make purchases or see information, pick out seats or buy tickets. Some 20 million Japanese now have newer cell phones with embedded circuitry that can function as rechargeable debit cards, credit cards or commuter passes. Electronic readers in vending machines, turnstiles and store registers beam waves that read the circuits and deduct what's due. Already, 30,000 vending machines, taxis and convenience stores have readers for the wireless credit phones, and the number may climb to 100,000 by the end of the year. People enjoy the e-money system: at convenience stores customer lines move faster and at the rail network there is no need to count coins.

May, 2006 - LUUP, the first payment system specifically for mobiles, launched in both the UK and Germany. LUUP (called LUUPAY in Germany) allows consumers to use their mobile phone like a wallet to shop with retailers or send and receive money on a person-to-person basis - with cash, debit/credit card and bank account functions built-in. LUUP is designed specifically for mobile phone use and is fully independent of mobile phone operators. LUUP accounts are available to anyone over the age of 14 and are created instantly by SMS with full registration completed through an easy sign-up process on the LUUP website. LUUP is fully integrated with the UK and German banking systems allowing funds to be accessed from credit cards, debit cards and bank accounts. With LUUP, merchants typically pay under 10% transaction fees compared to the Premium SMS operator fees which are normally in excess of 25%. Additionally, the purchase process is transparent to consumers who can view all LUUP account activity online in real time helping alleviate consumer concerns about unfair charges.

mPayment = banking in rural areas

May 2006: In the Philippines, mPayment is bringing banking to the previously un-banked in many rural areas, and making P2P (peer-to-peer) tiny micro-payments of as little as 5 cents possible. Some 3.5 million people now use it, and the economy, individuals, retailers and financial service providers alike are all benefiting. The lack of previous banking or payment infrastructures is a significant enabler here, and shows the potential for other less developed countries and un-banked populations.

Mobile money

Jan 2007

Near Field Communication


Contactless


Jun 02 2003

Mobile Phones, are morphing into an e-wallets.
bitWallet, a joint venture between Sony, Sony Financing, NTT DoCoMo, Tokyo Mitsubishi Bank, Toyota Motor, KDDI, and 24 other companies. The firm produces the Edy contactless card-based e-money system, which in turn uses Sony's proprietary "Felica" smartcard radio-sensing technology. Felica has been deployed in Edy e-money cards, Japan Rail's "Suica" cards used for entering trains, and several other applications.
NTT DoCoMo Inc. will soon be selling new handsets that will incorporate Sony Corp.'s Felica contactless smart card technology.
Just like an Edy card at present, a Felica-equipped mobile phone will be able to serve like any other debit card to buy anything - and it can be recharged via i-mode. No more chintzy 300-yen limitations on what you can buy with DoCoMo serving as the billing agent; no more limitations on buying only ring tones, images, content services, or what an i-mode site operator is willing to sell for 300 yen; in fact, no more limitations - period.

Mobile payments

Jun 23 2003

Four of Europe's biggest wireless operators - Vodafone Group PLC, Orange SA, T-Mobile International AG and Telefonica Moviles SA - are moving ahead with a venture designed to make it easier for con would become operational in 2004 and had plans to expand globally. It really seems that mobile phone companies are transmuting into credit card companies, using the phone SIM as the identity module for transactions - and taking the idea has been around for a couple of years but has been hampered by the multiplicity of operators: if you used Vodafone you couldn't buy things from a shop using mmO2 payments. Simpay, the commercial name of the Mobile Payments Services Association (MPSA), is a bid to get round this. It was founded by Orange, Telefonica Moviles, T-Mobile and Vodafone, who hope to sign up lots of others. Simpay could let SIM-equipped notebooks or PDAs make payments.

In the meantime, the "Touch and Go" Octopus Card has become so popular in Hong Kong that over 9.3 million Octopus cards are being actively used by the territory's 7 million people (2003). Manufactured by Sony, Octopus Card is widely accepted not only by the different modes of public transportation, but also convenient stores and supermarkets as well as fast food restaurants.

Liquid Screen Small Payment Service

Dec 22, 2003

On the 22nd of December, SK Telecom started its Liquid Screen Small Payment Service that allows settlement of account charges through ray signals captured on a liquid screen.
Payments made by small settlement can be added to the charges on the next month's cellular service bill. The payment amounts charged by Moneta Cash transactions are paid in real time from the cash that has accumulated in the Moneta account.


 
NERO wearing the Adidog shirt
 
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