MOBILE OFFICA

5, Country, JAPAN, Mobile, Priority

JCB is set to launch its wireless corporate solution in the fall of this year. Built around Sony’s “FeliCa” contactless IC chip technology, “Mobile Offica” includes a suite of functions including employee identification, office and network access, and cashless payment. “Mobile Offica” marks the first time that mobile phones incorporating a contactless chip enabling credit card payment will be available in Japan. Advanced postpay functionality is provided by linking to the employee’s own credit card account. “Mobile Offica” also enables users with i-mode capable phones to monitor outstanding credit card balances and view detailed transaction histories, and users may be able to request increases in their credit limits on-line. NTT DoCoMo will be releasing i-mode “FeliCa” Service for mobile wallet applications, including train pass and e-money, on four i-mode smart-card handset models, in early July.

JCB to Release Mobile Offica This Fall

5, Country, Mobile, Priority, UNITED STATES

JCB is set to launch its wireless corporate solution in the fall of this year. Built around Sony’s “FeliCa” contactless IC chip technology, “Mobile Offica” includes a suite of functions including employee identification, office and network access, and cashless payment. “Mobile Offica” marks the first time that mobile phones incorporating a contactless chip enabling credit card payment will be available in Japan. Advanced postpay functionality is provided by linking to the employee’s own credit card account. “Mobile Offica” also enables users with i-mode capable phones to monitor outstanding credit card balances and view detailed transaction histories, and users may be able to request increases in their credit limits on-line. NTT DoCoMo will be releasing i-mode “FeliCa” Service for mobile wallet applications, including train pass and e-money, on four i-mode smart-card handset models, in early July.

Royal Bank of Scotland Launches a Top-Up Promotion

5, Country, Mobile, Priority, UNITED KINGDOM

Royal Bank of Scotland has launched a new promotion for its top-up service, offering top-up customers who use any of the Bank’s 1,359 cash machines over the next month a chance to win one of six prizes worth GBP150 of mobile phone air time. RBS customers who use the service between May 17th and June 11th will automatically be entered. The top-up service, which has been available since April, is free of charge. The service enables customers with a pre-pay mobile phone on Orange, Vodafone, O2, T-Mobile and Virgin Mobile networks, to “top-up” direct from their bank account. Amounts between GBP10 and GBP50 can be credited to a mobile phone at one time at any RBS cash machine.
There are 34 million UK mobile phone top-up users.

USTT Patents

5, Country, Mobile, Priority, UNITED STATES

USA Technologies, Inc. has received Notice of Allowance for 18 new patents from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. This further solidifies the Company’s leadership position in cashless transactions, interactive media and e-commerce capability for vending, kiosk, point-of-sale and several new markets the Company has begun to target.

Mobile Payment Forum

5, Country, Mobile, Priority, UNITED STATES

The ‘Mobile Payment Forum’ was launched Tuesday to expand the global market for mobile commerce. Created jointly by American Express Company, MasterCard, VISA, and JCB, the non-profit group will develop a framework for standardized, secure mobile payments and address current m-commerce issues. Focusing on payment card transactions, which are used in almost 93% of all e-commerce payments, the Forum will address key areas such as interoperability, passwords, cardholder authentication and encryption methods. The consortium will enable disparate systems and technologies to work together, reducing industry fragmentation and establishing a more stable environment for vendors to develop products. The group said yesterday it also will complement the work of other industry consortia, such as MeT, the Mobey Forum, and the WAP Forum’s E-commerce Expert Group.

Mobile 3-D

5, Country, Mobile, Priority, UNITED STATES

VISA International this morning announced a new global specification for Internet payments made over mobile phones. The ‘Mobile 3-D Secure’ specification is based on existing payment technologies and is part of ‘VISA Authenticated Payment’, an e-commerce program designed to ensure secure online payment transactions through cardholder passwords. The ‘Mobile 3-D Secure’ specification supports global interoperability, enabling consumers to have a consistent and seamless experience regardless of the method or device being used to access the Internet. It minimizes the impact on merchants and requires no changes to backend payment systems. In Asia, VISA has partnered with Hutchison Telecommunications and Dao Heng Bank to develop a mobile payment service using ‘Mobile 3-D Secure’. In Europe, VISA has signed a strategic alliance with Omnitel Vodafone while, in the US, VISA and Sprint are working together to help facilitate secure mobile payments and create opportunities to purchase goods and services over the Sprint PCS nationwide wireless network.

Wireless Ads

5, Country, Mobile, Priority, UNITED STATES

SkyGo, Inc. officially launched its ‘Mobile Advertising Platform’ yesterday. The firm recently completed a pilot and study with VISA, NextCard, and Catalina Marketing. Using ‘SkyGo MAP’, credit card issuers can deliver contextual ads within content; targeted, permission-based alerts; or a browse-able ad shopping channel. The suite of SkyGo products include ‘SkyServer’ and ‘SkyStudio’. SkyGo offers ‘SkyServer’ in two editions to enable carriers and publishers to deliver targeted interactive ads and sponsored content to mobile phones, PDAs and pagers. The ‘SkyServer’ platform enables one-click purchase from an advertisement and also integrates with third-party rewards programs. ‘SkyStudio’ creates interactive ad types and supports a broad range of devices and protocols. In addition, ‘SkyStudio’ enables campaign optimization, allowing advertisers to manage creative rotation and frequency. (CF Library 3/8/01)

MobileWay

5, Country, Mobile, Priority, UNITED STATES

MasterCard has formed an alliance with MobileWay to develop and market an authentication scheme that will verify cardholders to merchants and confirm transactions using their wireless devices. MasterCard and MobileWay also intend to collaborate on development projects to ensure interoperability between MasterCard’s electronic payment systems and MobileWay’s global data network hub. Both firms also plan to develop next-generation m-commerce technologies. The alliance also includes cooperation on a number of key initiatives with the intent to leverage MasterCard’s global payment system and MobileWay’s global network by building upon the efforts of the Global Mobile Commerce Interoperability Group.

Next Gen B2C

5, Country, Mobile, Priority, UNITED STATES

Ericsson and IBM confirmed Thursday a major partnership to develop and implement technology that enables high-value, high-volume business-to-client services such as wealth management, account aggregation, mobile trading, and credit card and payment alerts. The alliance will combine Ericsson ‘Mobile Internet’ application building blocks such as Ericsson ‘Mobile e-Pay’, ‘Safetrader’ and ‘WAP Gateway’ with the IBM ‘WebSphere’ infrastructure family of products including ‘WebSphere Everyplace Suite’, and the IBM ‘eServer’ family of products. IBM says many of the wireless projects underway at banks and financial services firms today are in pilot stage, involving only a few hundred consumers and undertaken on a one-off basis to gain first-mover advantage. IBM says financial services companies now are faced with the challenge of delivering higher value financial services to hundreds of thousands of customers located around the globe.

m-Commerce Signatures

5, Country, Mobile, Priority, UNITED STATES

Schlumberger Test & Transactions and Baltimore Technologies announced Friday they intend to develop and deliver solutions aimed at enabling wireless handset subscribers to digitally sign transactions using a mobile phone. The cooperation will involve integration between the Schlumberger regional data processing hubs and Baltimore ‘UniCERT’ to enable the bulk issuance of SIM/WIM smart cards containing digital certificates. Specifically, the solutions will be based on Baltimore’s certificate management system, ‘Telepathy’ and ‘Simera e-motion’, and Schlumberger’s ‘WAP 1.2’ compliant SIM/WIM card.

Wireless France

5, Country, Mobile, Priority, UNITED STATES

Next week France Telecom Mobiles will launch a new service that will enable customers to make secure payments for remote transactions via Internet or mobile phone, as well as pay bills and add call credit their wireless phone account. The upcoming ‘Paiement CB Sur Mobile’ program makes France Telecom Mobiles the first operator in the world to enable customers to make secure payments by Carte Bleue credit cards via a wireless handset. The standards for this service have been defined by the CB Credit Card Consortium. Customers will be able to purchase goods or services from 27 partner merchants. By the end of the year the service will be adopted by nearly 1,000 e-commerce and mail-order companies. To pay for transactions, customers select the “Paiement CB sur mobile” Web icon and enter the wireless number. A few moments later, the customer receives an SMS message to initiate the payment order. Once the order is accepted, customers insert their Carte Bleue credit card in the cellphone and validate the purchase by entering their PIN number. An authorization request is sent to the bank and the customer receives confirmation of the transaction. The PIN number is never sent on the GSM network.

Wireless MasterCard

5, Country, Mobile, Priority, UNITED STATES

Citigroup’s e-Citi unit announced Friday it will join MasterCard’s ‘Global Mobile Commerce Forum’. The forum, which now has more than 200 participants, was established last November to foster knowledge exchange between MasterCard’s and Europay International’s member financial institutions, network operators and mobile technology companies. The last ‘Mobile Commerce Forum’ meeting was co-hosted by Europay International, and was held in March in Genval, Belgium and attracted more than 150 participants from around the world. A variety of mobile commerce solutions were discussed, ranging from “dual slot” approaches with a separate bank payment chip (either on a plastic card or as another SIM card) to remote wallet solutions. The group estimates that by 2001, 50 million consumers will own a commerce-capable wireless phone.