The new recruits join representatives from 3, American Express , JCB, MasterCard International, NTT DoCoMo, Oracle, Telecom Italia Mobile, Visa International and Vodafone.

Created in November 2001, the Mobile Payment Forum seeks to address the requirements of both the mobile and financial industries while accommodating consumer and merchant needs for convenience, choice and security in m-payments.

As steering group chair, Dell’Otti is responsible for the review and approval of all technical activities, including the Forum's three working groups.

He says the working groups have made impressive progress on best practices and requirements for download mechanisms, secure two-way messaging, and form fill technologies.

"In the next year, we’ll work to finalise those deliverables, and continue to work on the issues our members have identified as top priorities - a global interface specification and third-party authentication - as we strive to further enable secure mobile payments," adds Dell'Otti.