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Simpay to Let Cell Users Pay for Products

Posted on: Monday, 23 June 2003, 06:00 CDT

By MATT MOORE

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Simpay is the name of the company set up by four of Europe's biggest wireless carriers to let cell phone users pay for certain products with their cell phones.

Britain's Orange SA and Vodafone, Spain's Telefonica Moviles and Germany's T-Mobile are behind the company that offers secure payments between merchants, cell phone users and banks.

On Monday, the London-based company unveiled its name and its slogan, "Pay for stuff with your mobile."

The ultimate goal is to push mobile commerce forward by creating a single brand for processing payments, Tim Jones, the chief executive, told The Associated Press.

As it stands, the market for buying goods with a cell phone is limited. Users can go online, using a phone's built-in Web browser, and order flowers from a Web site, provided the details of a credit or debit card are stored in a virtual wallet.

The new clearinghouse, Jones said, offers more, taking card payments directly from mobile phone users and storing the financial information for future transactions. The service will cover small purchases, typically no more than $10 or so.

"Our aim is for you to see it on music Web sites, when making a flight booking or even when paying a bus fare," Jones said, adding it could be in use by next year.

Other instances of its use, he added could include buying MP3 music files, downloading games or paying for a parking meter.

Besides selecting the name, the company also filled out its management team, adding Simon Richards as chief operating officer; former Vodafone executive Jim Wadsworth as head of marketing, and Edward Cooke, formerly of Orange, as chief financial officer.

Cook said the company is in talks with more than a dozen European wireless operators about instituting the system. The system will be unveiled gradually over the next year, with an eye toward taking it to the United States and Asia, too.

"Why should it work in London for an Italian tourist and not an American one?" he asked.

He also said the process shouldn't be a service geared only toward GSM, or "global system for mobile communications" networks, which is prevalent in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. In North America, CDMA, or "code division multiple access" is the dominant standard.

"We would be wrong to see Simpay as a GSM-only initiative," Jones said.

Last year, the amount of money spent globally for phone accouterments like ring tones and logos was an estimated $1.6 billion, according to Ovum, a research firm. By 2006, Ovum projects wireless commerce could reach $37 billion.

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