Mobile phone payments enjoy successful London trial
Londoners could soon be able to make payments with a swipe of their mobile phone, following the success of a trial from Nokia and network providers O2.The Finnish mobile phone firm provided 500 city residents with a handset adapted with both Barclaycard and Oyster card technology.Contactless payments were then made through the devices for tube trips and small purchases from retailers including Yo! Sushi and Eat, with no major hitches reported.Reacting to the success of the experiment, an O2 spokesperson told the Guardian that a city-wide system could be in place in time for the 2012 Olympics.Also speaking to the newspaper, technology expert Philip Makinson sounded a note of caution, however."It requires cooperation, not just between handset manufacturers and network operators, but third parties such as Visa or Mastercard and banks and retailers," he said. "To reach critical mass you really need to have at least three of the big [phone] operators involved."Mobile phone payments were originally developed for consumers in Japan, where systems have been publicly accessible for the past four years.
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