Motorola (China) Electronics Ltd said yesterday it wanted to turn Asian handset users, including 700 million Chinese, into active banking customers through its “mobile wallet” idea.
“If we can have these people pay their utility bills via their mobile wallets, imagine the business activities that could be created for banks, vendors and telecommunication operators,” said T.K. Ng (吳達光), a Motorola (China) Electronics executive.
Without disturbing the vendor portals or cellphone models and subscriber identity module (SIM) cards now available in the marketplace or vendor portals, Motorola’s mobile wallet uses technology similar to that in credit cards on a tiny film that is half the size of a regular SIM card.
Speaking ahead of the company’s Mobile Wallet World 2009 conference, which opens today, Ng said the i-SIM near field communication (NFC) Lite card, designed to attach to regular SIM cards to create instant financial services, will be rolled out in Taiwan or China by the end of this year.
“Taiwan is the best testing ground for this type of technology because it is a country that is very receptive to new technologies and a successful roll-out in Taiwan will give more impetus for Chinese consumers to try it out,” he said.
The i-SIM NFC Lite card can integrate various types of cash cards, such as Taipei’s Easy Card (悠遊卡), gift, debit and credit cards, into a single platform to facilitate transactions, company executives said. The mobile wallet will also be able to register VIP cards and point collection cards at shops for discounts and promotional offers.
“With a simple swipe of the cellphone, discounts can be applied, reward points can be collected and gift cards can be used, all simultaneously,” Ng said.
“As with any technology, there will be initial and continuous safety issues that new businesses will perhaps have to solve,” Ng said, referring to possible security issues arising from hackers targeting cellphones.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last