Hungary to Begin Mobile Payments Rollout in September (April 1, 2013)
Hungary this fall will roll out a uniform system for paying transportation costs via mobile phone. The National Mobile Payments System will be run by Nemzeti Mobilfizetési, a state-run company, while various mobile payment providers will act as resellers, according to a report in the Budapest Business Times. The platform initially will enable mobile payments for parking and highway passes beginning this September, with future expansion into railway tickets and public transportation payments in 2014 and 2017, respectively. In December 2011, the Hungarian parliament passed a law calling for the establishment of a uniform mobile phone payments system. A year later, the government issued detailed regulations, including fees.
Mobile payments are on the rise in Hungary, with gross mobile transaction volume projected to reach $2.8 billion by 2015, according to a report by IE Market Research. And mobile also is heating up elsewhere in Central Europe. The Hungary announcement comes just weeks after Poland’s PKO Bank Polski unveiled a new mobile payment service of its own. That system, dubbed IKO, soon will include parking and transportation payment capabilities as well, according to the bank.
