Mondex International said it has signed an agreement with Cellnet of the United Kingdom to jointly develop a system for transferring digital cash via mobile telephones.
Using the GSM-Global System for Mobile communica-tions-technical standard, subscribers would be able to move cash from bank accounts to their Mondex cards, make deposits in the reverse direction, or make phone- to-phone transfers.
Cellnet already enables Barclays Bank's Barclaycard customers to view information on mobile phone screens. The link to Mondex would "turn the mobile phone into a personal cash machine," said Mondex chief executive officer Michael Keegan.
Separately, Mondex unveiled a high-security chip from Hitachi Ltd., the H8/3109, for the next phase of its consumer rollout. It projected total production of one million cards by yearend and five million cards by the end of 1998.