The Mobey Forum, a bank-backed m-commerce collective, has recommended a global mobile financial services architecture designed to give banks a head start in the race to develop secure wireless payment systems.
With new payment methods becoming more popular with consumers, banks are keen to develop payment systems as part of banking services for mobile customers. Founder members of the 30-strong Mobey Forum are ABN Amro Bank, Banco Santander Central Hispano, BNP Paribas, Barclays Bank, Deutsche Bank, HSBC Holdings, Nordea, UBS, Visa International, Ericsson, Nokia and Siemens.
The Forum is recommending the adoption of server-based wallets controlled by an independent chip card which sits alongside the existing SIM in today's mobile handsets. The Forum claims the proposed dual chip standard is suitable for mass-market adoption and provides consumer choice. It was finalised following discussions with European and International banks and mobile handset manufacturers.
Bo Harald, chairman of the Forum explains: "Consumers need convenience and mobility across service providers without affecting security. We must find solutions that have future potential, cater for interoperability and are easy to implement and market for banks – otherwise it will be difficult to find the necessary business case."
He says the recommendations will enable remote mobile shopping over consumer handsets and will eventually open the option to provide mobile payment services in local shops.
Several Mobey Forum members say they will begin pilots using the preferred architecture within the near future.
The raw standard - which is based on open standards and advocates the use of existing infrastructures to reduce implementation costs - will be further refined during an Associate Member Summit, which the Mobey Forum plans to host in September.