Motorola signed on to participate in the GSMA Pay-Buy-Mobile Initiative in Europe. Motorola will participate in trials to develop mobile payment activities, and provide feedback to GSMA Near Field Communications (NFC) Technical Guidelines white papers. The trails will also work under the standardization bodies such as ETSI and the NFC Forum. Motorola sees the NFC and associated applications including payments as an area of strategic focus, and sees this as a means to facilitate the development and implementation of an NFC ecosystem.
The concept of using a mobile phone as an electronic wallet has been met with mixed response by consumers. While it’s hard to find someone outside the home without his cell phone these days, which lends the handset to act as a wallet, privacy and security concerns needs to be worked out before it can widely become a mode of payment.
Mobile Payment is already popular in Asia.
Only question is whether the many parties (Carriers, Manufactures, Etc) can figure out how to cooperate… don’t hold your breath…