The Payments Council’s upcoming Mobile Payments Service, which is
due to launch in April 2014, will enable customers to make secure
account-to-account transfers using only a recipient’s mobile phone
number. The launch of the service was revealed at an SQS hosted
seminar that also discussed the technical and legal compliance issues
associated with mobile payment services using open source software
(OSS).
Nick Daniel, Head of Business Development at VocaLink, David Picton,
Senior Project Lead with the Payments Council, Julian Brook, Associate
Director at SQS UK, and Pinsent Masons associate Angus McFadyen led
the panel answering attendees’ questions. The panel focused on The
Payments Council’s upcoming Mobile Payments Service and Picton
believes this new service will be ideal for users transferring money
between accounts while on the move – a point confirmed by Daniel,
who stated that VocaLink anticipates the number of people using mobile
payments to reach 25 million by the end of 2014.
Another highlight of the seminar, which focused on how open source
software can help deliver mobile payment solutions quickly, while
reducing intellectual property risks, potential brand damage and
exposure to security vulnerabilities, was the use of open source code
in mobile payments.
Eight financial institutions, including Barclays, Cumberland Building
Society, Danske Bank, HSBC, Lloyds, RBS and Santander, have already
committed to offering The Payments Council’s new service from spring
next year. This ‘launch group’ represents 90% of UK current
accounts and Brook believes that almost every financial organisation
that is developing mobile payment software will be using open source
code to some extent.
Brook warned: “With £1.5 billion mobile payments anticipated by
2022 – five times the number made in 2012 – banks that do not yet
have mobile payments on their roadmap, are at risk of missing out on a
lucrative market. Very few of the organisations that are progressing
mobile payments will have sufficient controls in place to accurately
quantify the amount of open source they are using with any confidence,
as there is currently 50% visibility at most.”
Brook underlined the risks associated with not having an effective
open source governance process in place within mobile payments
services: “Despite the projected growth in mobile payments, a lack
of governance and controls mean banks do not have full visibility of
open source software used. This opens banks up to potential security
concerns associated with non-licensed code being used in, for example
mobile payments, which could put them in danger of exposing
commercially sensitive information.”
Brook also highlighted the benefits of using open source to drive down
development costs and improve efficiency, explaining how financial
organisations can achieve quicker time to market using open source
thanks to the code already being used and tested by other
organisations worldwide.
Angus McFadyen’s presentation noted that of the 60 to 70 billion
apps downloaded this year, 80 per cent will use open source. He then
outlined the legal and compliance aspects of mobile payments, and how
these can be managed by ensuring software such as open source is
correctly licensed, whether it is developed in-house or comes from
existing code.
For further information www.sqs.com.