1. Canadians invented the phone.... Alexander Graham Bell, duh...

2. Canadians invented the cell phone ... not many know this

3. we have an oligopoly among our banks which is bad in some ways, but good if you want to launch a national payment system cause you only need 5 playaz to agree, RBC, CIBC, BMO, TD & Scotiabank

4. young Canadians use the internet at a very high percentage, thanks to gov't funding for the internet in public school and high schools

5. Canadian businesses adopted, and used debit cards at a much higher rate, and earlier than U.S. businesses - we found it "no problem" to swipe

6. our telecomm companies have lots of money and are very competitive, always striving for new technologies to exploit

7. some people think Canadians are conservative, but when it comes to money stuff, we try all sorts of new and weird things - we use Canadian Tire money, we turn our dollar bill into a coin, then we have a toonie - we pay our bills over the internet, we use swipe cards for transit, we have contactless payment systems at gas stations - we try a lot of new 'tings.

So for all these reasons I told my students in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005 that they should read the newspapers on a regular basis and watch for companies that might be involved because those would be good companies to work for, or at least buy stock from.

• technological environment and new cell phone applications
• competitive environment, creating companies and alliances which would compete against Canadian development

My hope from the Rogers, Bell and TELUS consortium is not simply a copy of DoCoMos phone that carries an eCash function but rather something more spohisticated - that is to say your phone will allow you to debit money directly from your account at Royal Bank or CIBC -whatever, so there is no intermediate step of having to load the phone with money - the phone simply acts as an intermediary device between the vendor and your bank, just like how we use interac cards presently.

2005

 http://www.wpspay.com/ was launched in Nov 2005, BUT..... 7 months later, it is still a single page website with the old press release
 

see, nothing but the old Nov 2005 press release

Booz Allen Hamilton outlines the role that 5 key players need to take

Banks and credit card companies ..."must leverage existing value chains, rather than build new competitive solutions. They must also evaluate ways to let mobile telecoms participate in collaborative value generation."

Mobile operators "must consider new mobile payment systems in the context of new ways to open up revenue streams, especially from monthly m-payment subscription charges or per transaction fees. Operators must also take full advantage of the positive side effect of embedding the mobile phone even deeper into the life of the subscribers — a significant motivator in the Japanese model."

Handset suppliers [cellphone makers] "must embrace new approaches and start to consider active integration of mobile payment capabilities into product road maps and line-ups. Mobile payment capabilities are seen by some as the next big thing to drive handset replacement, making standardization and compatibility across operators and platforms critical to preserve user attractiveness and scale benefits."

Merchants "must use their vast experience with cashless payments to drive further cost decreases that accrue from giving up cash, and to offset POS technology upgrade costs."

Customers: "it needs to be demonstrated to mobile phone users that mobile payment is much more attractive than other more familiar payment schemes. The bundle of convenience aspects (safe, secure, available, fast, transparent, etc.) needs to be packaged and sold to target groups individually."

by Roman Friedrich, Johannes Bussmann, Olaf Acker, and Niklas Dieterich

2006

Anyhow, CP puts a story out on the wire and it is picked up by several newspapers across Canada, 

Africa

2005
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Daily Times, Pakistan - 2005 Nov 6th "Cell phones plug Africa’s poor into mobile banking"

"A 2003 survey estimated that only half of South African adults had a bank account, but a third of those without an account owned a mobile phone. Cell phones have spread quicker than bank accounts across the rest of Africa. FinMark, a British-backed non-governmental organization that looks at ways financial markets can help the poor, estimates at least half of all bank accounts in South Africa will be administered via cell phones within five years. MTN (MTNJ.J), Africa’s biggest mobile operator by sales, hopes the new banking service will serve as a retention tool for existing high-spending cell phone customers.

Africa

2005
 
 

The story appears to be written by By Rebecca Harrison but it has been carried on so many online sites it is difficult to know the original host. It appeared on the Pakistan newspaper Daily Times Nov 6th, 2005. Was also carried on yahoonews Nov 1st. Permission to quote from Yahoo!, use the Yahoo! logo, and use screen captures, was given in an email by Debbie Macleod, Yahoo! Marketing Manager Jan 21st, 2005. Copy of the email is kept in the permissions binder

"Cell phones are already used for music downloads, text messaging, and video games. But here in South Africa, they are beginning to perform another function: personal piggy bank. With the new technology, a grandmother in rural area can receive money from her son, working hundreds of miles away, with the beep of her cell phone. A teenager can buy groceries with a few punches of keys. Not a coin need change hands.

It's a high-tech solution designed to help poor people here who never have had access to banks, cash machines, or credit cards. And it's another example of using digital technology to fast forward development in remote areas."
With info from Nicole Itano, The Christian Science Monitor 

Korea

 
 
 

"While the idea of using a mobile phone as a credit card makes the collective North American Consumer a bit nervous, Japan has already embraced and implemented the practice. NTT DoCoMo announced last month [Dec 2005] that consumers may “swipe” their cell phones at any RF enabled reader."
from  http://www.cellphones.ca/tag/m-commerce 

"M-payments are catching fire in Japan and Korea, but have so far failed to spark much interest in Europe and the U.S. The efforts in those two regions have faltered mainly for two reasons: The technology wasn’t in place, and the stakeholders — banks, credit card issuers, handset makers, and telecommunications companies — have worked at cross purposes. But all that’s changing. Recent advances in handset, chip, and mobile network technologies and upgrades to the point-of-sale infrastructure along with better teamwork among the players have dramatically improved the environment for mobile payment solutions across the globe."
from  http://www.strategy-business.com/resilience/rr00023 

The latest step in the evolution of the cell phone is DoCoMo’s venture with Sony. The wireless company is now implanting Sony’s FeliCa contactless chips, which were initially used in public transit smartcards, into its cell phones, giving customers the ability to pay for train fare, theater tickets, and a growing array of other products by passing their phones over a sensor. The results are impressive: Five months into the program, at the end of 2004, DoCoMo had sold more than 1 million FeliCa-equipped phones and expects to hit 10 million by the end of 2005, exceeding the rate of adoption of the wildly popular i-mode.

The important point here is that NTT DoCoMo’s complete dominance of its market allows it to impose its new cashless, contactless payment scheme from the top down with relative ease. Customers, who’ve had six years to get used to using their phones as lifestyle tools rather than just as communications devices, have demonstrated that they’re eager to take advantage the m-payment function. Merchants want to tap into a large and growing market (DoCoMo tempted those who weren’t initially ready to pay for the new point-of-service technology with subsidies). And DoCoMo didn’t need the buy-in of banks and credit card companies at the outset to make the whole thing fly (although it does plan to work with both to expand its business beyond the prepaid model)."

by Roman Friedrich, Johannes Bussmann, Olaf Acker, and Niklas Dieterich

Kageyama explains "...a series of phones going on sale this summer [2004] in Japan, for use on NTT DoCoMo's wireless network, are the world's first with an embedded computer chip that you can fill up with electronic cash."

To pay you simply wave your cell phone within a few inches of a special display found in stores, restaurants and vending machines around Japan. A fairy-like tinkling sound means your purchase is being deducted from the embedded chip using radio-frequency ID technology. 

Unlike infrared or other mobile payment schemes that require clicks on the handset, you don't even need to open your clamshell-shaped phone, the style of choice here."

Kageyama says "It's also an idea that makes sense, given that almost every Japanese has a cell phone and relies on it for so much information that being stranded in the street without one almost causes panic. There are 81.5 million cell phones in this nation of 127 million people. For the wallet phone tech to really take off, stores, theaters and restaurants that accept electronic payments need to become more widespread. They total around 9,000 in Japan so far, but the number is quickly growing. To buy a diet Pepsi from a vending machine, I pushed a button on the machine that indicates electronic payment and pushed another button to pick the soda. When a display the size of a small greeting card lit up with the price, I put my phone next to the display. The soda pop rolled out, and the display blinked with the amount of money left in the phone. "b

by Roman Friedrich, Johannes Bussmann, Olaf Acker, and Niklas Dieterich

"Through this new product the holders of Sberbank-issued Visas who are using the Mobile Bank service get new opportunities to pay for products and services from their mobiles at any location where mobile communication is available.
With Mobile Bank - Verified by Visa, Sberbank clients can make payments for any mobile communication and satellite TV subscriber, from their own card accounts. The clients interact with the system from their mobile phone menu without typing SMS inquiries. "
from  http://www.sbrf.ru/eng/news/news280700.htm#060126