$5,000? PUT IT ON MY CELL

DoCoMo's next big move: Phones that double as credit cards

By Ian Rowley in Tokyo Jun 6, 2005

In the beginning, the cell phone was a phone -- handy for making calls but Little else. Then manufacturers added cameras, e-mail, music, and even television to their phones, making the gadgets an essential part of daily routines. Now, Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo Inc. wants to entrench the once-humble cell phone even deeper into consumer lifestyles by turning it into an electronic wallet. After introducing handsets last year that double as debit cards -- allowing users to pay for small purchases such as soda or coffee from vending machines and convenience stores -- the company this year plans to make those phones full-fledged credit cards.

To boost its effort to make mobiles the new way to pay, DoCoMo is taking a 34% stake in Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc.'s credit-card business. In late April, DoCoMo said it would pay $935 million for the stake in Japan's second-largest credit-card issuer. DoCoMo has also held talks with Japan's No. 1 issuer, JCB International Co., about some sort of tie-up, though no details have been released. “This is a completely new sector for DoCoMo and is part of our aim to move into areas where we are not so dependent

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