The decision was taken after Paii came to the conclusion that the telcos are not as well placed as banks to take the platform forward.
The banks’ plan is to merge the two payment services to form a single application that will enable Danish consumers to use their mobile phones for money transfers, online and in-store payments.
A new Swipp app is planned for 2015 that will incorporate complementary technology of the previous two applications. The CEO of Paii, Peter Bredgaard, will join the board of the merged company and the new company will also take over all employees of Paii.
The four operators set up Paii at a time when telecoms service providers across Europe were trialling and launching mobile payments services, many based on near field communications (NFC) contactless technology.
Indeed, the Danish company was launched just two weeks after mobile operators in the UK formally named their mobile payments venture Weve. However, the Danish venture did not include NFC in its initial phase, instead making use of SMS and apps-based services for mobile payments.
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