{"id":1172,"date":"2007-09-03T20:30:07","date_gmt":"2007-09-03T20:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/sicence-technology\/mobiles-to-become-digital-wallets\/1172\/"},"modified":"2007-09-03T20:30:07","modified_gmt":"2007-09-03T20:30:07","slug":"mobiles-to-become-digital-wallets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/sicence-technology\/mobiles-to-become-digital-wallets\/","title":{"rendered":"Mobiles to become digital wallets"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UK’s big five mobile phone firms have switched on a payment system that turns handsets into digital wallets.<\/strong> <\/font>Called PayForIt, the scheme is designed for those buying goods and services with a value of up to \u00a310.<\/p>\n

The industry hopes it will be used to pay for ringtones, train tickets, parking fees and eventually as a payment system on web shops and sites.<\/p>\n

Any cash spent via the scheme will automatically be added on to a customer’s phone bill. <\/p>\n

Cash crunch<\/strong><\/p>\n

The scheme standardises the way phones can be used to make payments so the process is the same no matter which operator a customer has signed up for or which handset they are using.<\/p>\n

Mike Short, chairman of the Mobile Data Association, said PayForIt had been developed as an alternative to other systems such as premium rate SMS.<\/p>\n

Many people, said Mr Short, were unhappy using that payment system because of past uncertainty about how much they would pay and who they turn to if things go wrong.<\/p>\n

“It’s for those customers who have not felt comfortable with mobile transactions or payments,” he said.<\/p>\n

Trust in mobile payments would be boosted, said Mr Short because shoppers will know who they are buying from and what they are spending.<\/p>\n

Anyone paying for goods with PayForIt will see an information screen that lays out what they have bought, who it has been bought from and how much it will cost.<\/p>\n

“It’s about opening up the micro payment choices,” said Mr Short, “but it’s not a total cash replacement.”<\/p>\n

PayForIt will appear as a payment option on sites that people can get to via their handset and soon will also appear as a way to pay on websites too, said Mr Short.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\n\n
\"Text<\/p>\n

Bad experiences have made some wary of paying via handset<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

Companies such as I-play, Gameloft, EA, Multimap, SonyEricsson and Samsung have become the first to sign up and let people pay using the PayForIt system.<\/p>\n

PayForIt was first announced in March 2006 and the official start date for the scheme was 1 September.<\/p>\n

“Most big brands would not use premium rate SMS to run their services, it’s not a good experience, it’s not consumer friendly,” said Anuj Khanna, a spokesman for Tanla Mobile which is one of the firms administering payments made via PayForIt.<\/p>\n

“It’s entirely geared at the low value, high volume transaction market,” he said.<\/p>\n

Paul Hunt, an expert on mobile commerce at consultancy Atos Origin, said there had been many failed attempts to set up similar schemes in the past. He said PayForIt has a good chance of success.<\/p>\n

“There’s a much wider age range of mobile users and the capabilities of handsets have changed,” he said. “The click to buy reality is catching up with the hype.”<\/p>\n

But, he added, the backers of the scheme had to work hard to distinguish PayForIt from alternatives to ensure people realise how it differs from other schemes.<\/p>\n

BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The UK’s big five mobile phone firms have switched on a payment system that turns handsets into digital wallets. Called PayForIt, the scheme is designed for those buying goods and services with a value of up to \u00a310. The industry hopes it will be used to pay for ringtones, train tickets, parking fees and eventually […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,18],"tags":[72],"class_list":{"0":"post-1172","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sicence-technology","7":"category-latest-news","8":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}