ABBL

Consumers

According to the World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Database, the current penetration of mobile phones in the developed economies is 97%. Many consumers are already using mobile phones for services beyond the traditional voice calls and text messages. Financial services are generally recognized as some of the most important among these new mobile services.

Instead of paying with cash, cheque or credit cards, mobile payments allow consumers to use their mobile phone to pay for a wide range of services and goods.

A major precondition for the successful implementation and wide use of mobile payments amongst consumers is that these new services should not add any significant shortcomings to the existing solutions that they are supposed to improve on.

Merchants

Merchants demand that new technology solutions provide a direct improvement to the efficiency of their operations, ultimately resulting in cost savings and in an increase in business volume. Merchants also expect that new technology reduces exposure to security issues (such as cash theft) and liability (such as illicit payments). Finally, merchants expect that new service offerings introduce new opportunities for marketing and increased brand strength.

The European Payments Council (EPC) believes that mobile phone based payments, in particular those using the contactless approach, are very well positioned to achieve all these benefits for merchants and other stakeholders who are directly providing services to consumers.

The role of the ABBL

Representing banks and financial service providers in Luxembourg, the ABBL naturally plays a central role in accompanying the implementation of new payment services and products. Besides dealing with the issue of mobile payments in its Payments, ICT and Standardisation Committee, the ABBL is also organising workshops on mobile payments bringing together banking experts, payment service providers and mobile network operators in Luxembourg. In this context, the ABBL is closely studying the EPC’s White Paper on Mobile Payments.

The ABBL believes that is highly important to define the right services, i.e. user-friendly payment services that are reliable and secure and that provide added value to users in various conceivable user cases. The definition of the selected services will condition the architecture that is to be implemented, the technology and standards to be used as well as the underlying operational rules. Cooperation of the major stakeholders will lead to the definition of frameworks, standards and business rules which are required to implement successful mobile payments solutions.