Citibank Tests out Payments Using Mobile Phones

From PC World: Citibank is starting a large trial of the use of mobile phones to make credit card payments at retail outlets and other points-of-sale in Bangalore, which the company is branding as "Citi Tap and Pay".

The trial will cover 3,000 to 5,000 mobile users and about 500 merchants, it said.

The trial is about more than the technology: it will be a production-scale pilot to find the appropriate business model for payments using NFC (Near Field Communications) and mobile phones, Jeff Semenchuk, executive vice president and head of growth ventures at Citi Innovation, told reporters Tuesday in Bangalore.

NFC is a short-range wireless connectivity standard for communication between electronic devices. It is expected to be used widely for so-called "contactless" transactions such as payment and fast data transfers.

There are a number of pilots under way using NFC for a variety of applications. Nokia, for example, is participating in over 50 such trials, including some in the payment area, said G.K. Chakrapani, director of business development at Nokia India.

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