With the use of mobile phone banking increasing dramatically over the past year, analysts predict that we will soon be able to pay another person with just a mobile phone number. The system would be secured in the same way as debit or credit cards, as the phones sim-card has a similar encryption to the chip and pin facility on bank cards.
Monetise is a mobile banking solutions company that supplies banks with a platform to provide a secure mobile banking system to its customers. The company, which operates in the UK under the Monilink name, has already made their mobile banking system available to over half of UK banks and reports over a million transactions a month.
Chief strategy officer at Monetise Richard Johnson stated, “A national payments system potentially with just a mobile phone number is certainly within our sights”.
Monetise said that there was still a couple of years until the system would be up and running saying that: “Tap and go won’t be the immediate next step, it won’t be until about 2011 before people have that kind of handset”.
The system has already been trialled by O2 and Nokia; called O2 Wallet, the trial enabled customers to gain access to the London Underground and pay for small items in shops using their mobile phones.