With nearly 300 million mobile users worldwide expected to be purchasing content on wireless devices by 2005, many of these emerging services would greatly benefit from infrastructure support for mobile payments.
The figure shows a mobile micro-payment scenario:
The user initiates a request from a mobile content.
The service provider then contacts a wireless service provider, financial institution, or trusted third party to verify the user's identity and authorize the purchase, which is charged to the user's wireless phone bill.
Some of the popular mobile payment methods are
SET (Secure Electronic Transaction) protocol: It is a standard that will enable secure credit card transactions on the Internet.
SIM (Subscriber Identity Module): An SIM is the smart card inside a GSM phone that identifies the user account to the network, handles authentication and provides data storage for user data.
WIM (Wireless Identity Module): It is the security module implemented in the SIM card for WAP applications. WIM provides security services for WAP applications, and allows digital signature.
