Contactless Mobile Phone Payments
Best practice guidelines
Government, mobile phone and card payments industries have agreed on action to prevent criminals abusing new mobile phone technology, which allows them to be used like debit, credit and pre-paid cards. The new technology, which will allow customers to buy things by touching their phone to sensors in a similar way to Oyster cards, is being trialled by phone companies and banks in the UK. In an effort to design out opportunities for crime and reduce harm to consumers the government has been working with industry to ensure the technology builds in tough security measures at the earliest stages. Working with the government, the mobile phone and banking industry have agreed to a set of guidelines that tackle the risk of acquisitive crime associated with this technology.
Title: Contactless mobile phone payments - Best practice guidelines
Authors: UK payment cards industry and the mobile phone industry
Number of pages: 5
Date published: September 2009
Availability: Download full report 
PDF 36Kb
The technology
Contactless payment phones use near-field communication technology to authorise payments on an individual's credit or debit cards or pre-paid account.
Near Field Communication is a technology that enables contactless payment, where mobile phones are used as credit or debit cards. Trials of this technology, where mobile phones permit contactless payments, are already advanced in many countries. In Japan mobiles are being used as house keys and in Germany, supermarkets are trialling barcode scanning and automated payment using mobiles. In the UK, several financial institutions have recently announced trials of contactless payment using mobile phones; both Barclays and the Royal Bank of Scotland have trialled phone featuring Visa 'payWave' and MasterCard PayPass technology.
Previous advances in technology have led to unexpected new forms of crime; email heralded the phenomenon of 'phishing', ATMs precipitated the new crime of 'card catching' and online banking gave rise to 'key logging', used by fraudsters to track the input of secret passwords and account numbers.
Getting a copy
Download Contactless mobile phone payments - Best practice guidelines PDF 36Kb
Last update: Wednesday, September 23, 2009