When chip-enabled, contactless payment capabilities on cell phones become a market reality, at least two mobile banking vendors will be ready. This week, both UK-based Monitise and Sybase of Dublin, CA launched mobile payments platforms using near-field communications technology that currently is only available in pilot form from handset manufacturers, card associations and select banks.
Monitise announced its MoniTrust platform for payments and ticketing to its Monilink mobile banking and payments ecosystem in the UK, as well as the newly debuted Monitise Americas platform (a joint venture between Monitise and Metavante). MoniTrust’s feature sets include account management capabilities for users in an open platform that will connect them to their banking accounts, digital wallets, bill-pay services and remittance providers. MoniTrust’s aggregated hub capabilities will give customers access to their linked-in, non-proximity accounts.
Sybase 365, a mobile messaging and mobile commerce subsidiary of Sybase, meanwhile inked a partnership with mobile-phone payments technology vendor C-SAM to include a downloadable Java and NFC compatible client that will serve of the basis of mobile banking services through SMS, browser-based and Java form factors.
