Mobile wallets start to take shape

There’s a lot of talk about using mobile phones as a method of payment, from handsets including RFID chips for contactless payment to charging purchases to a users mobile phone bill. Simpay is currently in trials in Spain, and the UK and Belgiam are likely to launch the service by the end of the year. The system is basically an easier way to pay for mobile content than credit cards or premium messages, but to be really useful it has to offer a bit more than that. Currently content providers are held hostage by operators (in the words of one Moconews reader who is a content provider) because credit cards have problems as a method of payment over mobile phones. The best option, premium messaging, has the problem that carriers take up to a third of the charge, which is an incredibly high amount in the payment world. Simpay also lets the carriers decide how much to charge the content providers for the service, so there is no clear indication that charges will fall – which they really need to do to allow content providers to lower charges and promote mobile content. However, if the Simpay system allows content providers to distinguish between different telcos it would allow them to put pressure on the carriers by offering different prices to customers of different carriers, and explaining how much each carrier gets. Then heavy users of mobile content are likely to migrate to the carriers with the best rates…

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