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Mobile payment solutions announced by RBS and the EPC  

The desire to eliminate cash and its associated costs by paying with mobile solutions is an on-going industry trend and one
that RBS is keen to encourage with the launch of a contactless debit and credit card service for London taxis, on fares of less
than £10. The European Payments Council (EPC) is also doing its best to encourage mobile payments by partnering with the
GSM Association, an international trade group of mobile phone operators, to develop a framework for ‘trusted service managers’, which would provide payment services on NFC-enabled handsets

The latter EPC scheme will define a contractual framework document outlining the minimum requirements for a trusted service manager to interface with banks and mobile operators, including all the necessary technological integration, distribution and configuration activities. The framework will be ready by the end of the year and is intended to encourage mobile payment services in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA).

Commenting on the move Gerard Hartsink, Chair of the EPC, said he was convinced the partnership was the best way forward for enabling the mobile phone as a channel for the initiation of payments in SEPA. “I believe the agreement could also provide a model for other parts of the world,” he added.

The Royal Bank of Scotland taxi scheme has been developed with MasterCard and Commidea card processing systems and is currently being piloted in 25 London-based Xeta taxis, as part of the Contactless London launch, which includes numerous shops across the capital. Plans are afoot to extend the service to Xeta’s 400-strong fleet of black cabs by the end of the year if take-up is strong. A secure reader is fitted to the pilot scheme taxis, enabling contactless payments of less than £10 to be made simply by tapping the RBS-branded card against it. For fares above £10 transactions will have to be processed in the normal way.

• In other news, Sainsbury’s Bank and HBOS are also improving their mobile service, although rather than contactless payments, they are signing up to VocaLink’s ATM mobile phone top-up service, which enables pre-pay mobile phone users to add talk time to their handsets at a cash machine. The deal adds another 3,500 ATM machines to VocaLink’s mobile top-up service, which now covers 50,000 cash machines in the UK and accounts for more than 30 per cent of all top-up sales in the country.

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