Mobile phone functions as debit card
News brought to you by Skint Tariffs, providers of price comparison for cheap international calls. Customers could soon be able to use their mobile phones to make credit transactions if a Dutch scheme is approved by businesses in the UK.
The debit-card system was developed by a team in the Netherlands including a supermarket, a bank, a phone network and the IT consultancy Logica.
During the trial period, about 100 customers in Molenaarsgraaf, a Dutch village, took part in a six-month test at the C1000 supermarket.
When the customers would want to make a purchase, they would hold their mobile phones against a reader attached to the checkout and then type in their PIN numbers on the checkout's keypad to authorise the transaction.
The so-called e-wallet is already a hit in Japan, which had a 40 per cent take-up rate within the mobile phone market since 2004 and tests are also underway in the UK, with a possible launch by the end of the year.
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