Well, this is what CASSIS had in mind with its Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV)-based wireless payment solution for mobile phones. Instead of being issued with a plastic card, it can be downloaded into your phone, and instead of swiping a plastic card to pay for your purchases, you can use your handphone.

One of the first people to use the handphone as a credit card are subscribers of SK Telecom, a leading code division multiple access (CDMA) operator in South Korea.

CASSIS collaborated with SK Telecom and completed a pilot programme in December last year and has since signed a memorandum of understanding to utilise the new technology, says Cassis’ chairman Dr Marc Lassus.

The payment solution integrated the EMV global payment standard and universal subscriber identification module (USIM) smartcard standards, Lassus explains.

The new technology enables over-the-air downloading of a credit card payment application into the USIM card so that subscribers can use the handphone as a credit card.

CASSIS International’s chief executive officer Chua Thian Yee says the mobile phone today has advanced capabilities to access information, take pictures and communicate, but what’s missing in the current mobile phone application is a universal payment system.

“We wanted to leverage on the EMV specification and deployment worldwide to make full use of EMV to make the mobile phone into a payment device,” he says.

Malaysia is expected to be the first country in the Asia-Pacific to complete migration to EMV, one year ahead of mandate, Chua adds.

While the first step is to issue new EMV cards, the next step is to find out how to leverage on the additional infrastructure and opportunity in EMV and use it on other services, he explains. “With all the EMV cards pushed into the marketplace, the next question is how can they maximise the usage of card because there’s additional memory for more services. The card issuer can build a stronger relationship,” he says.