The mobile phone may take over from the credit card as the best way to pay for things at home or abroad. That's according to the GSM Association which starts trials of its Pay-Buy Mobile service in October.
The aim of Pay-Buy Mobile is to create a global standard for mobile phone payments using Near Field Communication ( NFC ) technology - a kind of short-range wireless. Every time you want to buy something with your phone, credits are securely transferred from it using NFC - much like commuters do with Oyster cards on London Transport.
The GSM Association has already managed to garner considerable support for Pay-Buy-Mobile among both mobile phone companies and credit card firms: Nokia , Samsung , LG and MasterCard are just some of the organisations that have already signed up.
Pay-Buy Mobile momentum
"After several fragmented initiatives, the mobile phone industry is now uniting around a single approach to enabling the mobile phone to be used, instead of cash or plastic credit card, at point of sale," said Rob Conway, CEO of the GSM Association.
"The support of the world's leading mobile operators and handset manufacturers should ensure that Pay-Buy Mobile is adopted worldwide, enabling....consumers to eventually use their mobile phones to pay for goods and services wherever they travel."
The GSMA announced today that Nokia and 10 more mobile operators had agreed to joint the project, joining the original 14 operators who initiated it.
