Leading French ops form m-pay venture

France’s three leading cellcos have teamed up to develop a mobile payment service to cash in on growing e-commerce transactions.
 
France Telecom, Bouygues Telecom and SFR are working with Atos Origin subsidiary Atos Worldline, a market leader in European secure payments, to develop Buyster and aim to launch the service in their domestic market by the middle of the year.
 
Buyster will have an addressable market of 50 million customers through the three operators alone, but will also be offered to the broader online merchant community by leveraging Atos’ knowledge of e-commerce.
 
The main focus is mobile phone-based payments, and the firms are working on a secure link between subscriber’s bank cards and handsets.
 
It is a combination the carriers hope will glean them a 10% share of the mobile commerce market within five years – equivalent to €6 billion of the overall e-commerce market, Buyster general manager Eric Gontier states.
 

“We are setting out our ambition to become a key player in e-commerce payment and the leading company in France for m-commerce,” Gontier revealed.