The Electronic Transactions Association this week announced a new task force that looks to unite the mobile payments industry. The Mobile Payments Committee includes representatives from Verizon (VZ), AT&T (T), Sprint (S) and T-Mobile, along with Google (GOOG), ISIS, Paypal (EBAY), Verifone (PAY), and Intuit (INTU). “There are a lot of different pathways to enable consumers to use mobile payments,” ETA CEO Jason Oxman told VentureBeat in an interview. “The idea behind the committee is to get all the players around the table, ask everyone to take off their company hats and put on their industry hats, and talk about what issues need to be resolved.”
The committee, which is chaired by Verizon’s executive director of federal relations Jackie Moran, will hopefully put an end to exclusive payment offerings such as Sprint’s Google Wallet, and will instead unite the mobile payment industry in the U.S. once and for all. Electronic payment service provider Square is absent from the task force however, even though Visa (V), one of its investors, is a member. The committee is scheduled to meet for the first time later this month.
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