FRANKFURT, Germany-Following the exit of the company’s majority shareholder, European mobile commerce company Paybox said it will shut down its consumer-oriented services-which totals 750,000 users-and will focus solely on the business-to-business market.
“We deeply regret this step. We are not only losing customers and merchants, but also the highly qualified team that made Paybox what it is today-the worldwide market leader for mobile payment,” said Mathias Entenmann, the company’s chief executive officer. “Without partnering with banks and telcos it would not be possible for us to achieve a critical mass of active users as the only provider of a universal mobile payment method worldwide. The closing of some sub-markets is regarded as the only way to bring the idea in which we believe into the future.”
The announcement comes after Deutsche Bank, the company’s majority shareholder, exited the endeavor by selling its stake to Paybox management. Paybox offered mobile commerce services in the United Kingdom, Germany and Sweden. It will continue to offer its services in Austria through a deal with Mobilkom Austria.
The move is not terribly surprising. Bank of Montreal, the first to introduce a wireless banking program in North America and a loud proponent of the business, shut its service down last year. The move followed similar suspensions by Bank of America, Citibank, Fleet’s Quick & Reilly, Keybank and Washington Mutual. Further, mobile-commerce startups Brokat and W-Technologies have been forced to shut down, while 724 Solutions Inc., Air2Web and others are shifting their focus away from the mobile-banking market.
But there is still movement on the mobile commerce front. Hong Kong’s six local wireless operators recently formed the m-Cert Implementation Forum to develop a single mobile digital certificate standard to promote m-commerce services. And Vodafone U.K., Orange and other operators have set up similar wireless payment schemes. Frost & Sullivan predicts trade worth $25 billion will be generated through mobile payments in 2006, which would be about 15 percent of online e-commerce spending.
