Going Shopping with Your Mobile Phone

As the mobile phone is becoming an indispensable device in the modern world, it is also turning into a multifunctional tool. It is already being used as a communication device, music player, mini-TV set or digital camera, and now it seems that it will also be used for making different payments, thus replacing the already classical credit card.

This is possible by fitting the phone with a short range radio-chip, which can transmit all the credit card information towards the terminal of a store register. This system has already been implemented by NTT DoCoMo in Japan, whose Mobile Wallet service already has about 3 million subscribers.

It seems that quite soon the system will also be implemented in the United States and Europe, because MasterCard has been testing a system that will adapt its PayPass, also based on the radio chip technology, to mobile phones. This new service may be the subject of a significant market trial next year.

For now, the payment chips are working separately from the GSM terminal, but Nokia and Motorola are developing mobile handsets that integrate the payment chip with the rest of the phone, opening the way for more innovative applications, as for example online payments.