Electronics giant Sony and Dutch semi-conductor company NXP said Wednesday they were creating a joint venture, with headquarters in Vienna, to allow payments and ticketing using mobile phones.
The new company, Moversa, which will develop, produce and market a secure chip known as a Universal Secure Access Module, "paves the way for consumers to use mobile handsets for various contactless applications such as mobile payments and transport ticketing, anytime, anywhere," Sony and NXP, which was founded by Philips, said in a statement. The new chip should enable mobile phone and transportation network operators as well as credit card companies to provide faster services to their clients, using mobile phones, it added.
The Vienna venture is expected to hire some 50 people in the next few months, NXP's Guus Frericks, who will lead Moversa alongside Sony's Toshio Yoshihara, told the Austria Press Agency. The chip will be available for testing by mid-2008, with commercial deployment planned for the end of the year, the statement said.