Dean Bubley: Mobile as wallet.... how very 1999

Dean Bubley shares his skepticism towards Motorola's mobile commerce announcement at the the Disruptive Wireless blog. He thinks Motorola is going "old-skool" by issuing a "press release about the idea of using your mobile phone as a replacement wallet."

Bubley asks sarcastically, "Haven't we been here before? Micropayments, use the SIM instead of a credit card, blah blah blah? Only this time with an RFID-style NFC (Near Field Communications) chip." He then goes on to list out the problems that still exist everytime someone has tried to tackle this area:

OK... trust, security, difficulty of changing consumer behaviour, upgrading point-of-sale equipment, educating retailers, huge system integration costs& complexity, vagaries of international usage, legal status of operators as "banks" or lender, credit risk, single point of failure, greedy business models, no "credit card portability" when you switch carriers, stolen phones, low battery, RFID privacy concerns... hmm, maybe I missed something?

He then quips why a handset will never replace his real wallet. He's "yet to find a mobile phone equipped with a pocket to hold a condom."