HP, Lucent, Oracle, Siemens and Sun establish consortium to standardize mobile payment and encourage worldwide growth of m-commerce
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PayCircle consortium will develop, utilize and promote open interfaces for mobile payment
Today, Hewlett Packard, Lucent Technologies, Oracle, Siemens, and Sun Microsystems established the PayCircle consortium to provide mobile device users worldwide a standard means of making mobile payments, regardless of the payment systems used by merchants or service providers. PayCircle will promote the growth of m-commerce by making payment transactions easier for mobile users. Until now, the large number of incompatible payment systems has hindered the spread of m-commerce. PayCircle intends to define open and uniform interfaces based on existing standards. Mobile device users can access their network operators’ or payment service providers’ mobile commerce offerings without having to install any new software. Security will be maintained by using mobile communication built-in security mechanisms, such as SIM cards, for authentication.
PayCircle aims to break the dependency that exists today between the individual applications and numerous proprietary payment systems and processes. By utilizing PayCircle interfaces, future applications can be developed independently of payment systems and with simple interfaces to such systems. The open PayCircle interfaces will enable products and services worldwide to be billed via different payment systems, such as prepaid or postpaid monthly phone bills credit cards, etc. For application providers, network providers and payment service providers who handle payment processing for m-commerce, PayCircle will eliminate the obstacles presented by proprietary and incompatible payment systems. Application developers will be able to work with common interfaces compatible with the payment systems of various payment service providers, enabling developers to bring their products to market much faster than before. PayCircle’s goal is to define the interfaces required for different software environments and integrate them as a specification into standards.
Analysts believe that easy mobile payment is one of the main prerequisite for the success of m-commerce and, consequently, of new services brought by new mobile technologies like GPRS, EDGE and UMTS. When the mobile phone can function as an electronic wallet for mobile payments, including micropayments, application developers will find it attractive to introduce new mobile communication services to the market. Examples include mobile entertainment (downloads of music, mobile gambling, etc.), information services (sports news, horoscopes, location-based services, etc.), and real-world services (paying parking fees, buying train or concert tickets, etc.). Network operators envision micropayments as an attractive business that does not compete with banks or credit card companies. For the end user, PayCircle will make m-commerce easy and secure and thus eliminate the major hurdles to widespread adoption and popularity.
Paymentgroup was formed in 2001 by Siemens and HP to develop an open standard for mobile service payments and a uniform Application Programming Interface (API) for mobile payment systems. The work of the Paymentgroup initiative has led to the foundation of the PayCircle consortium.
PayCircle is a non-profit organization and its membership is open to anyone who is active in the mobile payment market such as application developers, payment service providers, merchants, content providers, manufacturers of payment systems, suppliers for mobile infrastructure and mobile devices, network operators, banks, credit card companies, and others. This open approach guarantees that the necessary interfaces can be developed in a cooperative manner.
The current list of members and additional information about the consortium and consortium membership is available at www.paycircle.org. |
