LIVE FROM GSMA MOBILE MONEY SUMMIT 2011:
Representatives from the banks, operators and payments networks closed this year’s Mobile Money Summit, agreeing that the next 12 months could be a crucial period for the evolving mobile payments market. “Over the next 12 months we will see a significant amount of momentum, but we’ll also need to agree on a set of standards and a single standard eco-system,” said MasterCard’s Rajen Prabhu. This was a theme also taken up by the RBS’ Ron Karpovich – representing the banks – who warned that the industry should guard against a fragmented approach. “It’s like we’re all building ATM machines with different functionality,” he said. “Business cases will all work better if they can interact with each other.”
Representatives from the banks, operators and payments networks closed this year’s Mobile Money Summit, agreeing that the next 12 months could be a crucial period for the evolving mobile payments market. “Over the next 12 months we will see a significant amount of momentum, but we’ll also need to agree on a set of standards and a single standard eco-system,” said MasterCard’s Rajen Prabhu. This was a theme also taken up by the RBS’ Ron Karpovich – representing the banks – who warned that the industry should guard against a fragmented approach. “It’s like we’re all building ATM machines with different functionality,” he said. “Business cases will all work better if they can interact with each other.”
With regards to NFC, the panellists agreed that there is likely to be different implementations of the technology depending on the market. Karpovich also predicted that some “very large consumer merchants” could start accepting NFC payments over the next 12 months.
Representing the operators, KDDI’s Yasuyuki Koide said he was “concerned that so many things are on the table right now; are we confusing customers?”
The issue of trust was also identified as something that needs to be addressed. “What been working so far has been transactions between two people that know each other,” said MasterCard’s Prabhu. “That works because there is trust. But that exact same pipe is not working for other payments. We need a universal payment marque and a security marque.”
