Weve’s ‘wave and pay’ service to be scaled back

Weve, the joint venture between EE, O2 and Vodafone, has reportedly scaled back plans for a contactless payment app because the partners cannot agree on how to progress.

Less than a week after Apple announced its own mobile payment service, Weve, which gives brands access to 15 million opted-in consumers through various mobile services, has effectively abandoned its own plans for ‘wave and pay’, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph.

The service, which was set to allow users to pay for goods and services with a tap of their smartphone, was hailed earlier this year as the future of mobile-commerce and was set to make it easier for retailers and banks to work with the three operators.

It is understood each of the operators will instead release payment apps separately.

Weve did not confirm or deny the news, telling Newsline: “Weve’s mandate has always been to explore new commercial opportunities in the mobile commerce arena and to build products and services that makes commercial sense to do so. To date, we have already launched two very successful products in the shape of a messaging and a new advertising display service.

“Weve has also done a great deal of valuable work exploring opportunities in the UK mobile payments space in 2014, yielding insight and developing significant IP in this market. We continue to believe there is a great deal of potential in mobile contactless payments and we are currently working on developments where Weve can help streamline the mobile payments process.”

The Centre for Economics and Business Research has forecast that the mobile payments market will be worth £14.2 billion in 2018, however, research from GMI claims that more than half of consumers think that contactless payment tech is “not important” when deciding on a new phone to buy, suggesting take-up may be moderate.