Tom Zalewski, head of m-commerce for Nokia Americas, commented:
"Imagine the convenience of using your phone as your wallet to pay for the things we do everyday - from dining out to picking up prescriptions, developed photos and video rentals
The 'SmartCover' will clip onto existing Nokia phones. The cover is embedded with a radio frequency identification (RFID) chip.
The chip has been programmed with pre-registered MasterCard payment account information. When consumers tap or wave their Nokia phones on the specially equipped readers at the point of sale, payment account information is transmitted to the terminal. The transaction is then processed through MasterCard's secure payment network in the normal way. A system provided by JPMorgan Chase processes the payment account information. Just a few seconds after consumers tap or wave their phone, payment confirmation is received and they are on their way.
As a reward for participating, the retailers are free to send marketing by text message to customers' phones. The customers can only opt-out of receiving the ads after 30 days. This functionality will be upgraded to test Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) that delivers video and audio, during the latter part of trial.