The Mobile Payments Committee will work on interoperability and refereeing any fights that break out.
The new body been set up by the existing trade group, the Electronic Transactions Association. It will have its first meeting later this month with a remit to look at interoperability, regulation, education and all the usual trade body stuff.
It will have its work cut out. There are few sectors in mobile more confused and diverse than mobile payments, which is marked by a tug of war between OEMs, operators, banks, credit card companies and a raft of disruptive start-ups.
But at least this group has a broad membership. Alongside the aforementioned three, it also comprises the Isis shareholders AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA plus Sprint, Intuit, First Data, Panasonic and Neustar.
Bank and credit card firms Amex, MasterCard, Visa, Discover, Wells Fargo and Capital One are also involved.
No Square or Apple though.
The committee will be chaired by Jackie Moran, Verizon’s executive director of federal relations.
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