Upgrading phones into credit cards
AT&T and Verizon Wireless recently announced a deal with Discover Financial Services that will give smartphones credit card capabilities. This includes being able to purchase products in stores using a phone instead of a plastic card. Global bank Barclays would manage the accounts, while Discover would be in charge of processing payments.While it may seem like science fiction, there have already been previous trials of the technology across the world, with working systems in Japan, Turkey, and the U.K., and American tests by Nokia and Cingular. Previously, Visa and MasterCard had been the go-to credit card companies for these mobile experiments. This is no surprise, as MasterCard alone was responsible for 82 of credit-card spending in 2009. The fact that AT&T and Verizon didn’t go to them could be because Visa and Mastercard have their own chickens in the basket already. Visa has an iPhone App that lets people store payment information for several accounts, and MasterCard has its PayPass service, which works via stickers on the back of the phone.Will AT&T and Verizon Wireless’s involvement help this service get off the ground in a way that it never has before? Security issues and common standards have been slowing consumers from adopting the service in the past, but these companies are working on changing that. Smartphones are certainly in the public eye right now, and our guess is that consumers will jump on this new service if the companies market it in the right way. What exactly that is, though, isn’t so clear. You can keep checking “Upgrade Tech” or the always-dependable CNET for more information on this developing technology, as well as many other new and exciting opportunities to jump on the bleeding edge.