Simpay announces providers to bring mobile payments to life
Tata Infotech and Integri named in deals to support m-commerce rollout across Europe
Simpay, the mobile payment scheme founded by Orange, Telefónica Móviles, T-Mobile and Vodafone, has announced further providers in the creation of its mobile payment scheme. Following the 5th April 2004 announcement that Encorus, majority owned by First Data Corp., had been selected as the Scheme Central Service Provider, Simpay has now revealed that Tata Infotech and Integri will form the cornerstones of its testing strategy for the payment scheme due to launch commercially in early 2005.
Tata Infotech, a global systems integrator, is part of the Tata Group, India’s best-known industrial conglomerate. Tata Infotech will support Simpay in testing the central processing systems and the readiness of Simpay’s members for scheme launch. Tata Infotech was chosen for its ability to meet Simpay’s requirement to cost effectively conduct extensive and intensive testing using a combination of experienced onshore and offshore resources. Tata Infotech has successfully undertaken similar projects and provided innovative solutions to its customers worldwide in the areas of Software Development, IT Enabled Services and IT Infrastructure Management, amongst others.
Integri has been selected to build a suite of simulators of Simpay’s systems, to enable stand-alone testing by mobile operators of their own components of the scheme prior to full integration and to support the acceptance testing of the central platform. The Simpay Scheme Simulator will be built around Integri’s versatile and open test and simulation platform, INQ Test Tool. Integri’s INQ Test Tool architecture is conceived to meet the most demanding standards of electronic transactions. Integri’s worldwide customers-base includes financial institutions, telecom operators and system integrators in both e- and m-commerce.
Simpay’s offering is ideally matched to the current m-payments market allowing customers to make low price point purchases using their mobile phone. The cost of the goods or services, which include buying an MP3 music file, downloading a game or obtaining sports results, is debited from the mobile user’s account by his or her mobile operator. Simpay is ideally suited to next generation mobile services such as real time video.
Tim Jones, CEO, Simpay comments, "These announcements provide further evidence that Simpay is intent on making Mobile Payments happen. They represent another major milestone towards Simpay’s commercial launch in Europe during early 2005. We are confident that we and our providers will meet these timescales; Encorus will construct and operate our processing infrastructure, Tata Infotech will provide independent testing support and Integri will build our simulators."
Charles Antony, COO, Tata Infotech said: "Tata Infotech is proud to partner with Simpay which is the appropriate vehicle to take m-commerce to the masses. This partnership is in line with our competence in providing high-end value-added application and systems integration solution to our telecom customers worldwide.
Jan De Meester, CEO, Integri commented: "This further demonstrates the versatility of the INQ Test Tool, which can easily be customised for different industries. One of the key features of the INQ Test Tool is that the learning curve for a test team can be kept low. We are confident that the Integri test technology in combination with Tata Infotech's testing services will contribute to the quality and the success of the Simpay initiative."
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