DUBAI // Forgotten your wallet? No problem: just pay for those groceries with your mobile phone.
Shoppers will be able to do just that from next week in more than 400 outlets, including Carrefour and Costa.
Etisalat will sell a new Samsung smartphone equipped with near field communication chips that can connect with payment terminals when placed next to them.
Rashed al Abbar, the director of mobile commerce for Etisalat, revealed the technological advance at the Telecom World Middle East conference in Dubai yesterday.
"Your handset will have a SIM card with your credit-card details securely stored in it, with a specific credit limit of about Dh2,500," he said.
The price? Wait and see. "We really want to push for mobile payments," Mr al Abbar said, "so customers being able to use it easily is something that we want to achieve, and we'll try to subsidise the cost of the handset."
