Motorola buys into GSMA's 'pay-buy mobile' initiative

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Motorola is the latest industry giant to pledge its support for the GSM Association's (GSMA) Pay-Buy-Mobile initiative by becoming handset solutions supplier for future trials of the technology.

The GSMA launched its initiative in February this year with the aim of creating standards for near field communications (NFC) for contactless mobile payments. Following its introduction, in April a further 11 players including Nokia, O2, Orange and Vodafone added their weight to the body's efforts.

Motorola also plans to help further the use of NFC for contactless payments by providing feedback on technical guidelines and whitepapers, in addition to collaborating with standards bodies such as the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and the NFC Forum.

"Participating in the GSMA Pay-Buy-Mobile Initiative further advances Motorola's goal of bringing the promise of mobile payments and financial services to customers around the globe," said Alan Wright, senior director of strategic business development for Motorola's mobile devices division in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India.

"It is a key component of our strategy to deliver seamless mobility to mobile consumers."

The first trials are set to start in October this year.

Motorola's addition to the list of the mobile elite already supporting the GSMA's initiative has further highlighted the fact that the rest of the industry shares the same future vision for contactless payments.

"After several fragmented initiatives, the mobile phone industry is now uniting around a single approach to enabling the mobile phone to be used, instead of cash or plastic credit card, at point of sale," said Rob Conway, chief executive of the GSMA, when the 11 new sign-ups were announced in April.

"The support of the world's leading mobile operators and handset manufacturers should ensure that Pay-Buy Mobile is adopted worldwide, enabling vendors to achieve economies of scale and consumers to eventually use their mobile phones to pay for goods and services wherever they travel."

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