Google, PayPal, banks, mobile networks in pay-by-bonk peace summit

The Electronic Transactions Association, a US body that promotes online business, has managed to get everyone involved in mobile payments round the same table, if only to serve their common interests. The new "Mobile Payments Committee" will meet monthly, starting later in August, and the ETA has done a sterling job getting …

[ratfox]

Interoperability

I wish some of them could act as Google did in the US spectrum auction; i.e. pledging a whole bunch of money on condition that all participants have to accept interoperability no matter what.

It may be just my opinion, but I think government regulation about minimum interoperability is coming no matter what. There are just not enough players to guarantee a fair competition. If so, the sooner governements force interoperability, the better.

[Charles 9]

Re: Interoperability

The thing is, even government regulation is a crapshoot. It may well be that one of the big boys may not like the way the government is going, and government may have to be receptive to adjustment if one of them decides to stick to status quo and take their ball, opting out of proximity payments altogether. And in the current atmosphere of distrust, they at least have a reasonable chance of winning and proximity payments becoming a fading fad.

[Justicesays]

Not sure I understand

I keep seeing variations on this phrase "protected as they are with chip'n'pin transactions" used in conjunction with contactless payments.

So, a contactless payment is treated (in fraud terms) the same as an authorized PIN transaction?

If you claim a PIN authorized transaction is fraudulent, the first response of the bank is to claim that you did it, then they claim you must have told someone the pin. Then they refer it to the banking ombusman who sees "PIN Authorized" and backs the bank.

So we can expect the same treatment if we report a contactless payment as fraudulent?

Great! Sign me up!

[BillG]

the focus is really on "education of legislators and regulators developing public policy around mobile payments"

Translation: It's about lobbying politicians so that consumers won't be protected. Make it even easier for an impulse buy. Let consumers go into debt without even thinking about what they are doing. Transactions are immediate and irreversible. Yeah, you can't drive drunk, but you can buy while high.

Personal responsibility? Look at the people in any train station and tell me who possesses that.

That giant sucking sound you hear is the rich getting richer.

[Oldfogey]

Best mobile payment

is cash.

[Barrie Shepherd]

Not for me

As PayPal are involved it looks like I will be avoiding whatever payment system eventuates.

[Steven Roper]

Not for me either

As Google Wallet is involved it looks like I will be avoiding whatever payment system eventuates.

[Khaptain]

That simplifies everything

There was a time when you smply gave your money to the seller.

Now there are 3 men in the middle that will all want paid.

1 : Google or Paypal

2 : Visa or Mastercard

3 : Your Bank

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: That simplifies everything

Spot on, although you've missed off the mobile telcos from the list, and maybe even the handset makers. I can see Apple wanting 30% of the payment.

But for those opposed to contactless payments, they can rest assured that the combined corporate greed of all involved will come up with a scheme so expensive that it will never have universal acceptance. The "shiny shiny modern" brigade will without doubt want it to buy their Starbucks (which is still a wothwhile market to fleece), the rest of humanity may yet be wise enough to ask "so why would I want to pay extra for that?"

[Anonymous Coward]

"politicians of all colours accept that proximity payments are an inevitable evolution"

So if you can buy enough politicians of enough colours you no longer have to compete for market share. "Inevitable" indeed. If the end user wasn't merely seen as a "consumer" puppet to be milked at leisure, we might perchance have some choice left. Possibly.

[Whyfore]

Maybe I'm a luddite...

but all this NFC stuff sounds like a way of streamlining identity theft. Have all the security issues been sorted out, or is it more important that people could be carrying around easily-accessible digital wallets/passports before we think about that?

Cart before horse, etc etc.