Airline Industry discusses m-ticketing and m-payment via secure SMS

CellTrust CEO Sean Moshir has been speaking at the recent Airline Payment Summit, in Toronto, Canada. Moshir addressed the pitfalls and promises surrounding mobile airline payments.
As mobile devices evolve and offer consumers options for conducting business and personal transactions, industries such as air travel and other retail channels will find value in providing m-payment options to its customers.

"CellTrust is pleased to participate in the Airline Payment Summit inaugural conference and to have an opportunity to demonstrate how its patent pending SecureSMS Gateway enables the airline industry to leapfrog from thinking about SMS booking, to SMS buying and SMS checking," said Moshir. "Not only does the mobile phone provide the ability to dramatically lower costs-per-transaction and increase security for card-not-present transactions, but it can also create new revenue streams by enhancing value-added services to the passenger while en route."

"Mobile airline ticket purchasing began in Japan as early as 2000, moved into China in 2006 with SmartPay, and is now showing promise in India, with Jet Airways' JetWallet and Kingfisher's FlyBuySMS both having launched mobile booking and payment solutions within the last few months," continued Michael Smith, chairman of the Airline Payment Summit.

"Now that CellTrust has provided a Secure SMS solution, which inherently provides two-factor authentication, the mobile phone being in the possession of the user and a secure PIN being received over a secure SMS mobile channel, mobile payment has just become much more robust and viable. Until now, the security piece has been a big part of the challenge. With CellTrust's Secure SMS technology, mobile airline payment may be the ‘silver bullet' for which the industry has been looking."

CellTrust's SecureSMS Gateway allows businesses to exchange critical information with customers in a trusted environment on the mobile device. Setting itself apart from consumer-grade SMS, it gives the message sender the ability to confirm when text messages are delivered and/or read via a highly encrypted, tamper-proof transfer process. The solution also allows no size limitations along with remote wipe functionality that ensures users can wipe the handset if it is lost or stolen.