Cell Phone As Electronic Wallet, And More?

[inconnu1405241515 0]

Here in Japan the use of cellular phones as electronic wallet (e-wallet) seems to be finally picking up.In order to use your cell phone as an e-wallet, you would pre-charge some money into it through a dedicated phone app. Then by just hovering your phone over the reader terminal at stores, your payment is done.Multiple million units of e-wallet ready cell phone terminals had already been distributed into the market thanks to heavy promotion by the dominant cell phone operator NTT DoCoMo, all waitng for more stores to be equipped with the payment transaction reader terminals.Lately I have noticed there are more and more convenience stores, fast food restaurants installing reader terminals. Some coke vending machines on the street are equipped with a reader panel, too.A technology university has announced this week their plan to implement a system where mobile phones will replace student ID cards, on top of the e-wallet functionality. New enrolls will be provided with cell phone terminals free.Maybe the time is coming when the cell phone is the most important stuff you should never lose --- next to your life.

[organicbmx 0]

here in the uk the media is constantly reporting people getting mugged for their phones. this is a good idea but somehow it needs to be safer so that if you lose/are mugged for your phone you dont lose a whole load of other money.does the system require a pin code?

[inconnu1405241515 0]

The e-wallet is just like your real-leather wallet; it has no key. The system does not have a dedicated PIN auth session of its own. Your loss, if any, will be limited to whatever amout you have pre-charged onto it; it isn't like a credit card.Besides, I figure it is partly a matter of how soon users will get used to treating their cell phones with more care, like they treat their wallet.Nevertheless, you can enable the password lock of the cell phone terminal, in order to prevent unauthorized use of the e-wallet, as well as placing phone calls or viewing/sending e-mails.Having said that, I must confess that personally I am not yet convinced to take this additional risk when I will still have to carry my wallet anyways.

[iGuest 3]

I think it's a cool idea. I might want to get one if there is any kind like that around here. I doubt there are at the moment though. But is it safe? I mean, cell phones are easy to hack and stuff I heard, if someone gets a hold of your cell phone, you better watch out who has it because they might just spend all your money. I sometimes lend my friend my cell phone, so he can make calls and stuff that are local. If someone was to borrow it while it has money on it, I'd be a bit more paranoid.

[Herbert1405241469 0]

Yeah, I agree. I don't think it'd be safe... Even with encryption, there's bound to be somebody that'll crack it. All a guy needs to do is to sit in a public place (such as an airport) with a device to wirelessly sniff for any money transactions with cell phones and perhaps even turn their phone into a clone of the victim's phone, so that they can make money transactions, but not have to even steal the phone.