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Venyon: Nokia’s push at mobile payment

By: , IntoMobile
Friday, March 2nd, 2007 at 12:29 AM

Infoworld:

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Nokia, one of the first handset makers outside Japan to turn a phone into a wallet, now wants to sell services that will make these kinds of devices useful.

But the Finnish mobile equipment giant isn’t doing so directly. Instead, it has formed what it calls an independent third party, a joint venture with Germany’s Giesecke & Devrient, which makes smart cards. The venture, Venyon Oy, based in Helsinki, was launched in December and is about to open a Singapore office to complement locations in Munich and Dallas, according to Chief Executive Officer Lauri Pesonen.

The mobile phone payments Venyon wants to facilitate are based on NFC (near-field communication), which uses an RFID (radio-frequency identification) chip and antenna to exchange information with a payment station from a range of a few centimeters. Typically it would involve tapping the phone against a subway turnstile, a vending machine, a payment device at a checkout stand, or another phone, Pesonen said.

Phones are perfect for payment because people carry them almost everywhere, Pesonen told journalists at an event in San Francisco on Wednesday. NFC is already available on some credit and debit cards, and NFC phones will get cheaper when they no longer need a separate smart card for the feature. Such phones should hit the market next year, he said.

Venyon isn’t aiming at the hardware end of the problem but at the need for an infrastructure through which retailers and financial services companies can work with carriers and handset makers. Although standards bodies are working on specifications for this, Venyon is worried that the market will be in full swing by the time those standards are finished. If each set of partners develops its own technology, fragmentation would slow down adoption, Pesonen said.

NFC is going to take quite a while to hit mainstream America. I can’t wait for that day to happen.

About The Author

Stefan Constantinescu

Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.

  • geek

    Yawn. Another solution in search of a problem. And joy, another reason for a thief to steal my phone.

    Thus far, coins and bills work just fine for me. It would also be just as easy to use a credit card as it would to get out my mobile phone. I predict, 3 years from now (if that long) venyon will go bust.

  • Stefan Constantinescu

    if someone is going to mug you they’re going to want your wallet, watch and mobile phone anyways

    i don’t use cash. period. it’s all plastic for me. i just find online banking that dumps my checkbook in to an excel spread sheet at the end of the month to be liberating

    solution in search of a problem? i see where you’re coming from that angle and honestly can’t retort.

    i simply think nfc is cool and that mobile payment will be one of the things that make people go “my next phone will definitely have nfc!”