CBC News
Posted: May 14, 2012 12:15 PM ET
Canada's biggest banks unveiled a blueprint for turning cellphones into mobile payment terminals on Monday, a key step in a process that could revolutionize the way Canadians pay for purchases at retailers.
The Canadian Bankers Association published guidelines on Monday for how financial companies and large telecom firms can collaborate to turn smartphones into mobile payment terminals with the swipe of a hand. At 133 pages, the document covers a lot of ground. But it's a broad sketch of where the mobile payment industry is headed.
"These guidelines are intended to create a path to help all market participants move forward in developing mobile payment solutions," the bankers' group said in a release.
The gist is that these rules could pave the way to allow bank account information from credit and debit cards to be embedded into smartphones in the near future. Thus far, it's a purely voluntary and theoretical blueprint, but it does offer a tantalizing glimpse of a world where Canadians can pay for their purchases by waving their smartphones in front of a reader and having whatever they've purchased automatically paid for.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2 ... phone.html
