[The Chosun Ilbo, November 14 2007] KTF Shows Overseas Mobile Phone Wallet System

Korean mobile phone users may soon be able to use their phones to pay for their shopping overseas. KTF, Korea's second-largest wireless operator, said that it successfully demonstrated its M-payment service, which lets people use their 3G phones to pay for items overseas when roaming is activated, at the 2007 Mobile Asia Congress at the Venetian Macau on Tuesday. "The service is the world's first universal subscriber identity module (USIM)-based mobile payment service. It's significant because it enables mobile payments overseas after we introduce it in the country," KTF president Cho Young-chu said in his keynote speech. USIM is a small chip in the phone that stores the user's personal information such as passwords, roaming information and phone numbers. With the chip, users can use their phones like credit or debit cards. KTF said that the service will probably be made available in the first half of next year.