Industry giants develop Asian mobile electronic network
Industry giants develop Asian mobile electronic network
SINGAPORE (AFP): Standard Chartered Plc. of Britain and U.S software giant Microsoft Corp. teamed up with world leaders in cellular communications Monday to spearhead the development of mobile electronic services in Asia.
Mobile phone leaders Motorola Inc., LM Ericsson Telefon AB of Sweden, Nokia Corp. of Finland and 10 other groups will be part of the 15-group alliance.
Led by Standard Chartered Bank, the Asia Mobile Electronic Services Alliance (AMESA) would produce a multi-function bank card that will give users access to a whole range of electronic services, officials said.
"It is the world's first cross industry partnership for cross border mobile electronic services," AMESA project manager Nicholas Fung Ho Chung told a news conference in Singapore.
The alliance, which also includes credit card giant Visa International, would give customers in Asia access to banking, Internet commerce, bill payment, trading and information, using smart card technology.
Services accessed would run into billions of dollars and "the sky is the limit for us," Fung said, adding the alliance would keep its door open for new participants, including other banks.
Smart card transactions are now typically carried out at fixed terminals such as computers or multi-media kiosks.
"By combining the convenience and flexibility of the smart card and the mobile phone, the bank card will enable customers to access a whole range of electronic services," a statement issued at the news conference said.
The services would be commercially available beginning in the second half of 2000 in Hong Kong and Singapore.
"The two economies were chosen because they are the cutting edge of the information technology revolution in the region," said Mervyn Davies, Standard Chartered group executive director for Hong Kong, China and Northeast Asia.
Davies, speaking in a video conference from Hong Kong, said "this is the first time 15 industry leaders have come together, each one bringing with it, expertise in infrastructure, technology, services and a wide market reach."
The others in the alliance include Singapore Telecommunications Ltd.'s mobile phone unit SingTel Mobile, Internet unit SingNet and postal services arm Singapore Post.
The alliance also comprises IT firm Gemplus Technologies and Hong Kong mobile phone operator SmarTone and Hong Kong Post.
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the Open University of Hong Kong and the National University of Singapore will conduct research and development and market surveys and run pilot tests.
Standard Chartered, with 250 offices located in all of Asia except North Korea, will provide the regional financial infrastructure and introduce new financial services to AMESA's customers.
SingTel Mobile, SingNet and SmarTone would bring to the alliance their extensive mobile and Internet networks.
Gemplus with its smart card expertise and Microsoft with its recent smart card for Windows will provide the multi-function smart card technology based on Visa's "open platform."
Open platform allows card issuers flexibility on operating systems for transactions, said Fung, head of chip card and e- commerce in Standard Chartered's consumer banking group.
Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia will lend their cutting edge mobile communications technology and provide the handsets while Hong Kong Post and Singapore Post and their certification authorities will provide domestic and cross-border electronic identification services.
Davies said the smart card's ability to store and process large amounts of information securely would in time make it an integral part of people's lives.
"The mobile phone with increasingly interactive features, with its web browsing makes it the perfect device to perform the multi-function card. It will enable customers to have easy access to a whole range of services and transactions anytime, anywhere," he said.