Mobile Payment Forum Sets Direction for 2003 - Organization Adds New Board Members, Steering Group Chair
Wakefield, MA (ots)
The Mobile Payment Forum today announced additions to its leadership team, including three new members of the board of directors and a new steering group chair, following a significant year for the organization. Created in November 2001, the Mobile Payment Forum is still the only global, cross-industry alliance of leading organizations from the mobile and financial industries dedicated the advancement of mobile (m) commerce. The Forum focuses its efforts on standardizing the features and functions needed to deploy secure and convenient mobile commerce solutions.
The twelve-seat board now includes NEC Corporation, Nokia Corporation and T-Mobile International. In addition to NEC, Nokia and T-Mobile, the board is comprised of representatives from 3, American Express Company, JCB Co., Ltd., MasterCard International, NTT DoCoMo, Oracle, Telecom Italia Mobile, Visa International and Vodafone. As illustrated by the board of directors, the Mobile Payment Forum has attracted key organizations from various market segments within the industry - including handset manufacturers, payment companies, mobile operators and technology companies - to its membership.
The Mobile Payment Forum has also appointed Alessandra Dell'Otti, Vodafone, as steering group chair for the organization. The steering group is responsible for the review and approval of all technical activities of the Mobile Payment Forum, as determined by the board of directors, including overseeing the Forum's three working groups.
"The Mobile Payment Forum's working groups have made impressive progress on best practices and requirements for download mechanisms, secure two-way messaging, and form fill technologies," said Dell'Otti. "In the next year, we'll work to finalize those deliverables, and continue to work on the issues our members have identified as top priorities - a global interface specification and third-party authentication - as we strive to further enable secure mobile payments."
Over the past year, the Mobile Payment Forum has completed work on several deliverables, including an architectural framework document for its members, which provides a context for the Forum's working group activities and a set of base use-cases. The Mobile Payment Forum also recently produced a non-technical white paper with an overview of the Forum's activities and business impact on the mobile payment industry. The white paper is available to Forum members, other industry participants, and media and analysts at URL: www.mobilepaymentforum.com/pdfs/mpf_whitepaper.pdf.
"As a member driven organization, the Mobile Payment Forum seeks to address the requirements of both the mobile and financial industries while accommodating consumer and merchant needs for convenience, choice and security in m-payments," said Tom Manessis, co-president, Mobile Payment Forum. "As we enter our second year, we will continue to focus on the opportunities and the challenges facing the industry for mobile commerce, and continue to work with other standards bodies to minimize redundancy in work efforts and ensure broad cooperation on non-competitive issues."
Membership is tiered, allowing interested parties to join as either Principal or Associate members. Any organization with an interest in facilitating secure m-commerce is eligible to join.
About the Mobile Payment Forum
The Mobile Payment Forum brings together leading organizations from the mobile and financial industries to create a foundation for standardized, secure and authenticated mobile payments. Founders American Express Company, JCB Co., Ltd., MasterCard International and Visa International all bring extensive experience in creating interoperable global payment standards and specifications and a knowledge of payments in emerging channels. Membership includes key financial institutions, telecommunications operators, wireless- device manufacturers, merchants, content providers and software and hardware developers and vendors. The Mobile Payment Forum is a non- profit membership organization, incorporated in the state of Delaware in the United States.
For further information, visit the Mobile Payment Forum Web site at www.mobilepaymentforum.org.
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Contact: Margot Rodger Mobile Payment Forum Media Inquiries Phone: +1/781/876'6299 mailto:pressoffice@mobilepaymentforum.org
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Denise Snyder
Mobile Payment Forum
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Phone: +1/781/876'8840
mailto:membership@mobilepaymentforum.org