Standardization Initiatives

It is predicted that mobile applications will become an integral part of our lives at the personal and professional level. Mobile Payment (MP) is a promising and exciting domain that has been rapidly developing recently, and although it can still be considered in its infancy, great hope is put on it. If MP efforts succeed, they will boost both eand m-commerce and may be the killer service in 2.5G and beyond future ambient intelligence infrastructures. This article introduces the mobile payment arena and describes some of the most important mobile payment procedures and consortia that are relevant to the development of mobile payment services. The aim of this work is to introduce the reader to mobile payments, present current concepts and the motivation behind it, and provide an overview of past and current efforts as well as standardization initiatives that guide this rapidly evolving domain. MOBILE PAYMENT: A JOURNEY THROUGH EXISTING PROCEDURES AND STANDARDIZATION INITIATIVES FOURTH QUARTER 2004, VOLUME 6, NO. 4 www.comsoc.org/pubs/surveys he Internet has revolutionized the way business is done. eBusiness has slowly flourished and e-payments were introduced. However, the models, as well as the technology necessary to support eBusiness, are getting more complex day by day. mBusiness can be seen as the natural successor to eBusiness [1], exploiting the capabilities of wireless media for the development and provision of advanced business and customer services. Payments are the locomotive behind the business domain and heavily depend on trust and security. Mobile payments are seen as the natural evolution of existing e-payment schemes that will complement them [2]. However, in eBusiness transactions occur between people who are often represented by multi-user machines, a task that eases anonymity and makes it difficult to provide services such as identification, security, and trust within the ePayments domain. In the mobile world this is different, as mobile devices are transformed to personal trust devices (PTD), which are generally considered to belong to, and be managed by, a single user, i.e. the owner. Mobile payment is not seen as a simple mobilization of the e-payment (i.e., provide a mobile interface to an existing Internet payment procedure), as the context (e.g. business models, player relationships) and capabilities (e.g. end-device technology) are different. The context of mobile payments can be defined as follows: Any payment where a mobile device is used in order to initiate, activate, and/or confirm this payment can be considered a mobile payment. Contrary to popular belief mobile payments do not restrict themselves to payments via the mobile phone, but are possible on virtually any mobile device, including: • A tablet PC (which is a full-function PC with limited mobility, usually used by one person). • A PDA (a truly mobile device with multimedia and connectivity capabilities). • A smartphone (a consolidation of PDAs and legacy mobile phones). • Any mobile payment terminal or device (merchant-operated terminals with built-in security) capable of initiating, activating, and/or confirming a payment. However, when we speak about mobile payment, we generally refer to the kind of payment where the mobile device has mobile phone capabilities (e.g. smartphones) and not general wireless capabilities (e.g. tablet PC). Throughout the rest of this article we also foster this assumption, as all existing procedures assume this. Since the domain of mobile payment is relatively new, there are often misunderstandings. Some of the most common include: • It is often heard in the media that mobile payment will turn our mobile phones into “means of payment.” A mobile phone and, in general, a mobile device is not a means of payment (unless you actually trade your device for goods). A mobile device is only a medium by which payments may be initiated, activated, and/or confirmed. T