Simpay Shuttered

The following notice was posted on Simpay's website this morning:

London — Friday 24th June 2005

Following the decision of one of its founding Members not to launch Simpay for the foreseeable future, the decision was made today at a General Meeting of Simpay not to pursue its activity on a pan-European scale as originally planned.

Instead, Simpay’s operations will be scaled back with immediate effect. Member operators will be able to exploit Simpay’s intellectual property rights at a national level, although international interoperability remains a goal. The members will make known their individual plans in due course.

All of the operators involved in Simpay continue to share the vision of the enormous potential of the mobile commerce market and the importance of providing a robust and straightforward payment facility to content providers.

Earlier this month, Ovum commented on an article in Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung suggesting that T-Mobile would soon be quitting Simpay.

A key characteristic of the mobile payment field is the high number of international industry initiatives that have eventually failed to produce concrete results. If this morning's announcement is confirmed, then there is a risk that Simpay may not reach the critical mass of operators that is necessary to get the full benefits from establishing an interoperable framework.

Indeed. Simpay turned out to be yet another "group grope" mobile commerce initiative that failed to deliver.