AT&T Inc. said this morning in a press release that it has taken a step toward the long-promised notion of phones replacing credit cards, checks and cash by signing agreements with Wachovia Corp. and several other banks.
The agreements will allow customers of its Cingular Wireless arm, which is being rebranded as AT&T, and participating banks to manage their accounts and pay bills electronically by using an application on their cell phones.
While the use of mobile phones for transactions is in its early stages here in the United States, such services are already available in parts of Europe and Asia.
In Japan, people commonly shop with their mobile phones by just waving their handset instead of swiping credit cards.
AT&T, having tested mobile banking last year, has said it will not charge extra for the service but expects it to attract more users to its wireless Internet service and potentially help it add new users and keep existing ones.
Along with Wachovia, U.S. banks such as BancorpSouth Inc. , Regions Financial Corp. and SunTrust Banks Inc. are offering mobile banking to AT&T customers.
The move is part of an effort by wireless companies around to world to boost their revenue and customer loyalty by convincing subscribers to use phones for everything from Web browsing and text messaging to playing music and video.
AT&T said customers can download software from privately held Firethorn Holdings LLC onto their phones. AT&T plans to include the software in new handsets in the second half of this year and is planning a multi million-dollar ad campaign.
Firethorn is also acting as an intermediary between AT&T and the banks.
August 20th, 2008
3 Comments at "Cingular Launches Mobile Banking"
Yesterday I learned from the news that the EU ministers of Finance decided that in two years the EU has to have a system that allows people to pay with their credit card throughout the EU.
The banks in Europe must invest in a system that allows all kinds of shops like supermarkets, etc, to let customers pay by swiping their credit card in a uniform system that works in all the countries of the EU.
So it looks they are focusing here on payment by credit card instead of payment by cell phone.
Banks in the Netherlands are also going to reorganize the payments by credit cards (we call that “pinpas”) to make it better affordable for one man shops like butchers, bakeries, etc.
I think in Holland we would like to pay by card instead of cell phone.
Hi Frits. Welcome to my new digs!
It’s really interesting all the new things going on around the World with e-commerce, credit cards and banks.
If I understand correctly, in the EU currently people don’t have credit cards? or will they be making a special card for this type of thing?
Hi Sean,
Thanks.
People in the EU DO have credit cards of course. First of all Visa and Master Card, but many banks also have their own that may be allied to a larger company.
The payment systems of many cards however are local to the countries which means you cannot pay abroad, but if it bears a special “Maestro” logo you will be able to take up money from many money machines (ATM?) all over Europe.
The new system that the EU ministers decided to will make it able to DO pay abroad with your local card.
So the banks in Europe must synchronize their systems and perhaps everybody gets a new, maybe more expensive, card.
They did that so that if I want to pay in a supermarket in France I don’t have to go first to a bank to get cash money; We already have the same currency, right?
Instead, I can “swipe” my card just like in Holland with my pinpas at the french cash register and the transaction is completed.
Payments will become more efficient and flexible that way all over the EU.
I think the advantage of a credit card over a cell phone is that it doesn’t use batteries so you don’t have to recharge it every time. And there are lots of people, especially older people, that don’t want to use a cell phone for payments.
Would people in the US want to use their cell phone to pay at the cash register?
We also have experiments with that in Holland.
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