Committee to unify mobile payments policies formed

A new task force has been formed to develop a unified system for payments made via mobile devices such as smartphones, the trade group Electronic Transactions Association has announced. The Electronic Transactions Association said the Mobile Payments Committee is a task force with representatives from four major US carriers and other groups developing mobile payments solutions. “There are a lot of different pathways to enable consumers to use mobile payments. The idea behind the committee is to get all the players around the table, ask everyone to take off their company hats and put on their industry hats, and talk about what issues need to be resolved,” ETA CEO Jason Oxman told VentureBeat in an interview. The committee will meet for the first time later this month, the ETA says. With Verizon executive director of federal relations Jackie Moran as chairman, the committee will help develop policy and business strategy for the mobile payments industry. Also represented in the committee are AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile. Other companies in the Mobile Payments Committee include Google, Isis - a union between several carriers, PayPal, Verifone, and Intuit. VentureBeat said the issues to be tackled by the committee include: - helping participants figure out the complex business relationships necessary to make mobile payment options interoperable - helping legislators and regulators understand how to develop mobile payments public policy - educating consumers and merchants about the benefits of mobile payments. VentureBeat said Oxman had been planning the Mobile Payments Committee since he joined ETA as its CEO earlier this year. He said there is much recognition from the tech and payments sides of the industry such that the two sides are converging. VentureBeat said Square, which recently partnered with Starbucks, was "noticeably absent" from the ETA and the Mobile Payments Committee. But Oxman said he would welcome Square’s membership in the ETA, especially since Visa, one of Square’s investors, is already a member. — LBG, GMA News