New Players Piloting Payment-EnabledCellphones

December 15, 2005, 1:00 a.m. EST 1 Min Read

NEW YORK - (12/15/05) JPMorgan Chase & Co. and VISA planto roll out in January a six-month pilot test of payment-enabledcellphones, while Discover Financial Services indicated it will dothe same by mid-2006. Cingular Wireless will be involved in bothtests. The two financial services giants are not the first topursue such a strategy. MasterCard has said it will be able toprovide its issuing banks with payment-enabled phones within theyear, and Motorola is testing card-enabled phones with its ownemployees. The key issue to be addressed in the pilot: can thephones be made profitable for carriers. The phones will allowInternet access and downloading of other content, such as videoclips and games, for a fee.

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