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Credit Cards Built Into Mobile Phones |
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Communication
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Written by Peter Warren
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Thursday, 20 January 2005 |
Story used by The Inquirer
A consortium of technology companies is about to turn mobile phones into high-tech wallets.
The technology will let people make cash payments from their phones simply by pointing them at the object they want to buy.
Known as Near Field Communication, it has been jointly developed by
Philips and Sony and is expected to be available for use early next year.
"What we're very excited about with this technology is that it is so
simple to use that you just touch things with it," said Indro Mukerjee,
Philips Semiconductor's head of sales.
The system, which is being introduced by Philips, Sony, Nokia, Samsung
and the credit card company Visa, exploits a new development in the
retail industry supply chain called Radio Frequency ID which is
replacing bar codes.
RFID allows companies to place tiny computer chips in individual items
so they can be tracked and also opens a host of new high tech
applications such as packages that can tell your fridge when they are
about to go off.
By putting a tiny reader for the RFID chips in a mobile phone that uses
the NFC radio system the phones can 'see' the RFID chips when they are
placed close to them.
By working with Visa, Philips and Sony have been able to also build the
'chip and pin' computer chips now issued as standard on credit cards so
that the phone can buy any object it is placed against.
Pressing a button on the phone will authorise the purchase potentially
making cash tills a thing of the past
By taking the RFID 'bar-code' information into the phone, the phone
owner can authorise the buying of that object with the transaction being
sent via the mobile phone to a credit card company.
According to Visa, which for the past two years has been working with
Philips on the development of the system, it expects NFC to herald a
revolution in the way we spend while cutting down on fraud by getting
rid of credit card slips.
According to Visa vice president Debbie Arnold, it is a logical
development for both credit cards and mobile phones.
"In the world at the moment there is already a system that uses a card,
a phone and a terminal and that is in shops and so if you think about it
we were already going in that direction now we will have the ability to
take this to other consumer devices."
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