payments deployment as well as planning to release a preliminary set of minimum requirements for NFC in handsets.

GSMA Teams up with European Payments Council

LONDON, UK  June 30, 2008 -- The GSMA, the global trade body for the mobile industry, and the European Payments Council, which represents 8,000 banks in the European Union and EEA and Switzerland, are to work together to accelerate the deployment of services that enable consumers to pay for goods and services in shops, restaurants and other locations using their mobile phones.

Both the GSMA and the EPC envisage that this cross-industry cooperation will enable banks to deliver better mobile payments services to their customers, supported by mobile operators’ infrastructure. These services will be facilitated by a ‘Trusted Service Manager’, which will support banks and mobile operators in the distribution, configuration and activation of the bank’s payment application on the UICC^[1] within users’ NFC^[2] handsets. The GSMA, through its Pay-Buy-Mobile initiative, and the EPC will focus initially on defining a contractual framework document detailing the minimum set of requirements for a Trusted Service Manager to interface with banks and mobile operators.

“Together, the European Payments Council and the GSMA are well-placed to develop the tools our members need to deploy mobile payment services that will work internationally to the benefit of consumers,” said Alex Sinclair, Chief Technology Officer of the GSMA. “We look forward to a productive working relationship with the EPC.”

"We are convinced that this cross industry cooperation between GSMA and EPC is the best way forward for efficiently enabling the mobile as a channel for initiation of payments in SEPA, and this cooperation model could also be a model for other parts of the world," said Gerard Hartsink, Chairman of the EPC.

Seven mobile operators – AT&T, FarEasTone, KTF, Orange, SFR, Softbank and Turkcell - are running trials of UICC-based contactless mobile payment services and a further seven plan to begin trials in the near future. The trials form part of the GSMA's Pay-Buy-Mobile initiative, which is designed to provide a single global approach to enabling UICC-based contactless payments using a mobile phone.

The GSMA also announced today that it plans to release in the summer a preliminary set of minimum requirements for handsets containing NFC-enabled UICCs and NFC chips that can be used for mobile payments services.

Operators To Define Requirements For NFC Handsets

LONDON, UK  June 30, 2008 -- This summer, the GSMA, the global trade body for the mobile industry, plans to release a preliminary set of minimum requirements for handsets containing Near Field Communications (NFC) chipsets. Developed by mobile operators supporting the GSMA's Pay-Buy-Mobile initiative, the requirements will help handset manufacturers to develop NFC-enabled phones that are compatible with operators' planned mobile NFC services and quickly realise economies of scale. Forty-four mobile operators from across the world support the Pay-Buy-Mobile initiative.

The requirements will build upon the standardisation work completed by ETSI^[3] , which has selected the Single Wire Protocol to provide the interface between the Universal Integrated Circuit Card (UICC)^[1], recommended by the GSMA as the Secure Element for NFC^[2] applications, and the embedded NFC chipset within the handset. The NFC chip can communicate with existing contactless readers to deliver a wide range of secure, interoperable and transparent services, such as credit and debit payments. Consumers will be able to use UICC-based NFC handsets to quickly, easily and securely pay for goods and services in shops, restaurants and train stations.

"We are looking for manufacturers to produce a wide range of UICC-based NFC handsets that will support the many contactless applications being developed by mobile operators and their partners around the world," said Alex Sinclair, Chief Technology Officer of the GSMA. "We expect mobile operators to begin placing orders for these handsets this year as they prepare to rollout mobile NFC services, some of them in partnership with banks and credit card issuers."

The GSMA will ask handset manufacturers to give their feedback on the preliminary requirements, which will cover the handset's user-interface, operation in low battery power mode and other aspects of the contactless functionality, so that the requirements can be finalised by the autumn.

Mobile operator Softbank has just launched a trial of UICC-based NFC payment services in Japan bringing the total number of trials under the GSMA's Pay-Buy-Mobile initiative to seven. AT&T, FarEasTone, KTF, Orange, SFR and Turkcell are also running trials and a further seven operators plan to begin trials in the near future.

About the GSMA

The GSM Association (GSMA) is the global trade association representing more than 750 GSM mobile phone operators across 218 countries and territories of the world. The Association's members represent more than 3 billion GSM and 3GSM connections - over 86% of the world's mobile phone connections. In addition, more than 200 manufacturers and suppliers support the Association's initiatives as key partners.

The primary goals of the GSMA are to ensure mobile phones and wireless services work globally and are easily accessible, enhancing their value to individual customers and national economies, while creating new business opportunities for operators and their suppliers.

About the European Payments Council

The European Payments Council (EPC) is the trade association representing the European banking industry on payments and is responsible for defining the rules and standards for creating the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). EPC represents 8,000 banks in 31 countries (EU, EEA and Switzerland).

^[1] UICC refers to the Universal Integrated Circuit Card, sometimes known as a SIM card
^[2] NFC refers to Near Field Communications – a contactless technology that enables data to be transmitted wirelessly over very short distances.

^[3] The GSMA has contributed to the adoption of mobile NFC standards by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and is working with other industry groups, such as the NFC Forum and Global Platform, to secure agreement around a single global approach for enabling mobile payments.