FAQs
- What is the Mobile Payment Forum?
- When was the Mobile Payment Forum established?
- What does the Mobile Payment Forum do?
- Who formed the Mobile Payment Forum and who leads it now?
- What is the ultimate goal of the Mobile Payment Forum?
- How is the Mobile Payment Forum organized?
- Does the Mobile Payment Forum favor any specific technology standards, and if so, what are they?
- Will the Mobile Payment Forum create any standards?
- How does the Mobile Payment Forum compare to existing mobile industry initiatives such as OMA, GSMA, PayCircle, the Mobey Forum and others?
- How will the Mobile Payment Forum work with other industry initiatives and organizations such as Mobey, MeT and others?
- How will the participating members and their respective industries benefit from the work of the Mobile Payment Forum?
- How will merchants and consumers benefit as a result of the Mobile Payment Forum's work?
- Who is eligible to join the Mobile Payment Forum?
- How much does it cost to join the Mobile Payment Forum?
- How can my organization apply for membership?
| Q. | What is the Mobile Payment Forum? | |
| A. | The Mobile Payment Forum is the only global, cross-industry alliance of leading organizations from the wireless and financial industries dedicated to realizing the full potential for mobile (m) payments. | |
| Q. | When was the Mobile Payment Forum established? | |
| A. | The Forum was incorporated in March, 2001 and launched in November, 2001. With members representing key industry segments around the world, the Mobile Payment Forum is well positioned to carry out its mission to create a foundation for standardized technology and functionality for mobile payments, and address consumer and merchant needs for simple, secure, and interoperable m-payment choices. | |
| Q. | What does the Mobile Payment Forum do? | |
| A. | The Mobile Payment Forum brings together the wireless and financial industries to accelerate the development of the mobile payment market by providing an open and trusted environment in which member organizations address complex challenges facing the industry. The Mobile Payment Forum influences the development of wireless and financial standards by delivering the necessary tools to aid the industry in creating standards for safe, interoperable m-payments. These tools include requirements documents, best practices, detailed use cases, white papers and, as appropriate, specifications. |
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| Q. | Who formed the Mobile Payment Forum and who leads it now? | |
| A. | The group was established by American Express, JCB Co. Ltd., MasterCard International and Visa International, who bring their extensive experience in creating interoperable global standards and specifications and their knowledge of payments via emerging channels. The Forum’s board of directors reflects its global, cross-industry make-up. In addition to the founders, it includes: 3 (formerly Hutchison3G), Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Oracle, Orange, Telecom Italia Mobile, T-Mobile and Vodafone. | |
| Q. | What is the ultimate goal of the Mobile Payment Forum? | |
| A. | Member participants in the Forum are working together to find common ground, with the ultimate goal of delivering a practical framework that allows for a choice of protocols and payment solutions -- thereby meeting consumer and merchant needs for selection, convenience, and simplicity. | |
| Q. | How is the Mobile Payment Forum organized? | |
| A. | The Mobile Payment Forum is led by its board of directors, who oversee the Steering Group. The Steering Group is responsible for the strategic planning, review and approval of all technical activities of the Mobile Payment Forum. In addition to its strategic planning role, the work of the Steering Group includes such activities as evaluating activity proposals and assigning the work to appropriate Working Groups; providing reports on the progress of technical work; and initiating contact with other industry groups and establishing liaisons as necessary. The Mobile Payment Forum has three technical working groups, organized along the functional lines associated with the mobile payment process. All current and future activities are assigned to one of the following working groups:
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| Q. | Does the Mobile Payment Forum favor any specific technology standards, and if so, what are they? | |
| A. | The Mobile Payment Forum favors open standards and choice and is technology-neutral. Our goal is to create a framework that will allow a choice of protocols and payment solutions to be used. | |
| Q. | Will the Mobile Payment Forum create any standards? | |
| A. | The Mobile Payment Forum is focused on developing a framework for technical specifications that address specific areas of mobile payments such as cardholder authentication, passwords, and encryption. We would prefer to build on current technologies and take advantage of existing infrastructure rather than redesign them; for example, the Forum may produce use cases and business requirements documents for the personalization of multi-application devices but then share them with relevant organizations created for the purposes of developing standards. In this way we would complement, rather than duplicate efforts. However, if we find that no other organization is taking the lead on necessary specifications, the Forum will, as a last resort, take on such an initiative. |
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| Q. | How does the Mobile Payment Forum compare to existing mobile industry initiatives such as OMA, GSMA, PayCircle, the Mobey Forum and others? | |
| A. | The Mobile Payment Forum has a very specific focus - to develop methods for standardized, secure and authenticated mobile payments. An organization with an international membership base serving a global market, ours is the only consortium to bridge the efforts of the entire mobile and financial communities for m-commerce. We intend to make it possible to choose from a number of protocols and payment solutions for mobile payments. | |
| Q. | How will the Mobile Payment Forum work with other industry initiatives and organizations such as Mobey, MeT and others? | |
| A. | The Mobile Payment Forum intends to complement the work that is already being done by these groups. As such, the Forum has set up a formal liaison relationships procedure as a mechanism for reviewing and establishing appropriate partnerships in areas of common interest. Any member of our organization is welcome to put forth a proposal for a liaison relationship with another industry organization. All proposals that allow for broad consensus building and the elimination of redundancy will be considered. | |
| Q. | How will the participating members and their respective industries benefit from the work of the Mobile Payment Forum? | |
| A. | Cross-industry co-operation is the single most efficient and rapid method of developing acceptable approaches, standards and specifications. Acting as a bridge between the mobile and financial industries, the Mobile Payment Forum aims to accelerate the development of the m-commerce market by allowing consumers to make secure, convenient mobile payments. Our approach will expand the overall market. In the process, it will increase market opportunities for handset and chip manufacturers, telcos, programmers, wireless application service providers (WASPs) and many more organizations. | |
| Q. | How will merchants and consumers benefit as a result of the Mobile Payment Forum's work? | |
| A. | Ultimately, our efforts should simplify the payment process and reduce the cost of deployment, allowing merchants to provide affordable, interoperable m-payment options and consumers around the world to purchase simply and securely. Merchants and consumers will be able to do this anywhere in the world, in ways that take into account any specific regional preferences or circumstances. | |
| Q. | Who is eligible to join the Mobile Payment Forum? | |
| A. | We actively seek to engage all organizations involved in m-commerce, including telecommunications providers, handset manufacturers, payment card companies, financial institutions, merchants and merchant acquirers, wireless application service providers (WASPs), and programmers for the mobile market - such as browser developers, encryption service developers, systems integrators and chip manufacturers. | |
| Q. | How much does it cost to join the Mobile Payment Forum? | |
| A. | Organizations that want to play a leading role in the forum can become Principal members at a cost of $12,500 a year. Principal members have voting rights, may run for a seat on the board of directors, are automatically eligible to participate in Steering Committee (through which all technical matters are passed), and may have unlimited participation in all committees and working groups. Associate membership costs $4,000 a year. Associate members do not have voting rights but may participate in working groups, provide input on deliverables, have access to all research and attend all general meetings. | |
| Q. | How can my organization apply
for membership? |
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| A. | For information on membership please contact us at:
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