The Mobile Phone As Digital Wallet

A new UK payment system lets users pay for small items via their mobile phones.

As of Saturday, if you were paying for parking or a train ticket in the UK and it cost less than $20, you had a new way to pay for it – via your mobile phone.   A new payment system calledPayForIt allows users to securely pay for low-cost items and services, with the amount spent added on to the user’s monthly phone bill. It’s beenadopted by all five of the major UK mobile networks.   Essentially, it standardizes the ways phones can be used to pay for goods and services (and as an alternative to the much-hatedpremium-rate texting programs employed in the past) across all the networks.   It’s hoped that it will bring more people into the fold of paying via mobile. According to Mike Short,chairman of the Mobile Data Association,   “It’s for those customers who have not felt comfortable with mobile transactions or payments.”  Users will see an information screen on their phone detailing the purchase. Companies like EA and Sony Ericsson are amongthe big players to have already signed up for PayForIt.