O2 has bought out its partners in the Weve mobile commerce consortium and will run the business as a standalone subsidiary.
In a quietly released statement on its Website, the joint venture states: "We wanted to officially let you know that O2 have bought the Weve business outright from EE and Vodafone. Whilst exact details are to be worked through, for those of you that work with us, business is very much as usual."
First unveiled back in 2012 under the name Project Oscar, Weve saw EE, Telefonica and Vodafone band together to fight for a slice of the fast growing mobile commerce pie.
Originally pitched as a SIM-based platform for mobile NFC payments, the platform was later recalibrated to concentrate on building a clearing house for business-to-consumer mobile marketing through the sale of SMS text advertising.
02 insists that the buyout will help to expand Weve's reach considerably, opening up access to 31 million+ customers by co-opting Weve's audience of 22 million users with 02's wholly opted-in database.
"With one dedicated owner we will be more agile and able to take advantage of even better data such as location movement analytics, Mobile ID, and to be able to work alongside O2’s start-up incubator Wayra to help drive mobile marketing innovation," states the company.
Weve is the latest in a long line of mobile operator joint ventures to fall by the wayside in the face of changing technology and increased competition from banks and handset manufacturers.