

Mobile wallet offered to UK shoppers - nootopian
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13457071

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chrisjsmith
Limited usability I think considering it applies to only Orange customers with
Barclays accounts. Typically in the UK, it's virtually impossible to get any
banks and/or mobile companies to standardise on technology (think debit cards:
VISA/Switch/Solo/PO etc) so I can only see problems and more market
fragmentation appear.

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timthorn
I don't believe the standardisation point is true. The banks came together to
create the EMV (Eurocard - Mastercard - Visa) standards, which define eg how
chip & pin works. The mobile industry is also very big on standards.

The issue is about who owns the customer. There's the one secure element (the
SIM/bank card chip) - who should own that? Technically both operator and bank
can coexist on the same card, but the commercial position is not so simple.

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chrisjsmith
I was talking about before that with the old Switch/Solo junk that went on. I
did a spell working for an e-commerce outfit and integrating with the merchant
banks was an absolute nightmare.

