Nokia & MasterCard Plan PayByPhone

The idea of using a phone as some sort of wallet has been around for a while now and we’ve seen phones being used in Japan as payment systems too. Today, Reuters reports that Nokia together with mobile carriers have created a global initiative to turn all our mobile phones into wallets:

Consumers will be able to use a phone as a wallet or as an access card simply by waving it over a wireless reader — and in some cases punching a PIN number into the phone — similar to how travelers in Tokyo and London access public transport.

…The world’s biggest payment card company, MasterCard, is also involved in the initiative, which is cheaper and much faster than other wireless payment experiments, like those using SMS text messages. Trials with the new standard are set to start in October.

Phones in the scheme with use a contactless chip called Near Field Communication (NFC) which the companies involved hope will become a global standard for electronic wallets in mobile phones.

Nokia and telcos join mobile wallet plan | Tech&Sci | Technology | Reuters.com