SKT, KDDI, Softbank to develop m-banking platform

SK Telecom, KDDI and Softbank Mobile say they will jointly work on developing a Near Field Communication (NFC) mobile banking platform.

 

SKT announced the trio had inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to switch from their existing non-NFC mobile contactless banking services to a platform based on the NFC standard. 

 

The standardization of NFC cards with RFID functionality was completed by 3GPP in 2008 and commercial launch of NFC-compatible handsets are expected late this year.

 

Using the NFC standard, SKT, KDDI and Softbank Mobile customers will be able to offer mobile banking services in both Japan and South Korea.

 

NTT DoCoMo, KDDI and Softbank Mobile already offer a contactless m-banking system in Japan called FeliCa, which is incompatible with other m-banking systems.

 

SKT currently has 3.28 million users on its proprietary Combi Card financial transactions service, which requires users to insert a Combi Card USIM card into 3G handsets equipped with RFID functionality.