Operator unhappy at not being involved in the JV between Everything Everywhere, O2 and Vodafone but trio insist it is an open entity
Three has expressed its unhappiness at being excluded from the m-commerce joint venture between Everything Everywhere, O2 and Vodafone.
Earlier today the trio of companies claimed the JV will deliver the technology required for speedy adoption of mobile wallet and payments, which will enable consumers to transfer their entire physical wallet into a new secure, SIM-based wallet regardless of which NFC enabled mobile device, or mobile network they are on.
Three UK chief executive Kevin Russell (pictured) praised the direction of the move but said the company was concerned at being left out of the JV.
“Directionally, this is a good move on taking m-commerce forward,” he said. As the leader in the adoption of mobile internet services in the UK we would want and expect to be at the heart of a cross-industry development like this and are more than a little concerned that – as a core competitor – we have been excluded from this joint venture.
“The crucial test of the openness of this initiative will be our ability to launch services for all UK mobile consumers simultaneously.”
Everything Everywhere CEO Tom Alexander, O2 UK CEO Ronan Dunne and Vodafone UK chief exeuctive Guy Laurence insisted in a conference call that the new venture would be an arms length business and be completely open, and that they were confident it would receive approval from the Competition Commission.
O2 UK CEO Ronan Dunne said: “This is an open vehicle. I will be a customer of this business, Tom will be a customer of this business and Guy will be a customer of this business. Kevin can be a customer too, that’s absolutely fine. I don’t see any issue.
“We have been contributing know-how, capability and expertise into this and that’s why the three of us are in this. I am very comfortable with the approach we’ve taken and we’ve made it clear this is to enable experiences for customers.”
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