Pair discover their P2P payment potential

APPARENTLY IT has just dawned on a couple of US based companies - Phoenix Technology and Smart Chip Technologies (SCTN) that they've been sitting on a method for providing Mobile Person to Person (P2P) payments.

This kind of thing has been commonplace in developing countries for many years where there aren't any fixed lines, anyway.

What the pair are hoping to break into is a potentially huge and untapped market for the 'underbanked'. In other words those operating in a cash-only environment or those too young to open a bank account.

What do these people have in common? The majority own a mobile phone on prepay.

So with SCTN's technology it is feasible to make a payment from a mobile phone to just about any other device including handsets.

A smartcard could be charged with a payment using bar codes, magnetic stripes, and RFID. The payment can be made using an Internet accounts or more significantly bog standard SMS (text) and MMS (picture messaging) mobile phones.

The web site also mentions support for Palm and Windows based mobile devices but not Symbian.

The pair say that their P2P payment product is suitable for financial institutions, merchants and cellular network operators.

Well, yeah, that's obvious. The trick is actually finding a way to implement it in a way which people can understand and trust. µ

L'INQS
Phoenix
SCTN