TORONTO-Canada’s top-three wireless providers are partnering in an effort to allow users to make payments with mobile phones.
Bell Mobility, Rogers Wireless and Telus Mobility this week unveiled Wireless Payment Services, a joint venture to provide a platform for wireless payments. The carriers hope to allow users to make payments from any phone using any credit card.
The service will initially enable prepaid users to purchase additional calling time from their phones. A second phase will include other m-commerce services.
“This is a major step in the right direction, and a far cry from the early days of highly unsuccessful ‘closed’ solution offerings that required users to be either a customer of a particular operator or a given financial institution,” said Dawood Khan, partner at Kazam Technologies, a Canadian wireless consulting firm.
The project is similar to Simpay, a joint effort from European operators to provide a standardized m-commerce platform across Europe. Simpay effectively dissolved earlier this year as several major European operators pulled support for the effort.
