You are quite right, Anders, on the motivations of banks
and telco to never get along. For example, GSM already has a fully
complete, end-end security service fully deployed, with
full security roaming, rekey per network etc. The banks
rejected it, because of the transaction-fee model imposed
by a certain Finnish telecom operator, who
got it all designed and working, universally.
I think we have a technology change however. The handset
companies are determined to sell media content, VoIP, and
download applications (beyond ring tones). Content
is now big business, with large dollars already attached.
Handset companies are motivated (as are folk making
handset operating systems....MS)
NTT DoCoMo proved the business model for the
telco operators: provide content, people will browse,
using up their packet allocations on browing compelling
content offers (fees..). Wireless Telcos are motivated: with
GPRS finally rolling out in the US, we can get beyond the
WAP debacle.
With the opening up of the SIM as a technological platform, I suspect
the former politics will go away. Controlling the SIM;s
content will no longer influence market share wars within the
competitive telco space - the motivation for controlling the
SIM so much, today.
The US banks?
Yes US banks have an incestuous capability to destroy any
security initiative, on account of the industries own strange competitive
makeup and alliances. This is why you always go around them,
providing you can ensure it costs them nothing to catch up and earn,
once the infrastructure is working. You can be sure that as payment
transaction market saturates, you can always break one bank away to
sell a few payment services for new markets. If there is then
growth, the other banks will come running soon enough, standards
papers left flying in the back draft. US retail banks are driven by
two simple metrics: (a) their share of the payment transaction volume
in new markets, (b) how many of those new markets they have
an early lock on.
I need to get back to work, now. Less Marketing, more Programming.
Peter.
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