Industry committee  That's a big question. One of the areas someone mentioned is government. I participated in the payment task force, including the digital ID. There's an area that is fascinating and very interesting. There were some questions and worries about security and privacy. A mobile phone where you can carry your digital ID allows you to do all sorts of things.

Industry committee  We've made it open. We announced this new role for EnStream only about three or four weeks ago. We are starting to be approached by the smaller service providers. They're asking what it is they have to do. We recognize that if you're an issuer, if you're the Royal Bank, say, and you want your card on phones, you don't just want them on Rogers phones or Bell phones or Telus phones.

Industry committee  Yes. I have meetings booked already.

Industry committee  No. You can turn it off and it will still work.

Industry committee  I should add to that. If you have mobile coverage, now you can provide mobile payment, or at least you can get those cards to the phone, so that's great. One of the things we're doing through EnStream is trying to make it easy for smaller merchants, who may be in more rural communities, to be able to participate.

Industry committee  In the case where we're carrying banks' payment cards on our phones, all that billing information goes onto the credit card bill issued by the bank. Now, to the extent that we can assist and put in transaction alerts through the mobile phone, the smart phone can facilitate that with products offered by the payment networks that will provide visibility into where you stand on your card balance at any point in time.

Industry committee  Let me clarify what I meant by that. When you pull out your virtual MasterCard and present that MasterCard for the payment, if it says MasterCard on it, that means MasterCard has looked at this entire system: from the time you ask for that card to be distributed to your phone to how it gets there to how it is presented.

Industry committee  Yes. It wouldn't be physically printed--

Industry committee  It's a good idea, but no.

Industry committee  You wouldn't if you switched it. That's a very specific issue with iPads, particularly, which was presented to us by Apple as a requirement for putting that system in place. That's not typical of the way smart phones work. Typically you don't remove your SIM and replace it. It's an iPad-specific problem.

Industry committee  I want to make it very clear. Once the card is sent to the phone, which is done over the network, over the wireless network, there's no network connectivity required from that point forward. When you open your virtual wallet on your phone and choose your Visa or MasterCard, it is presented from the physical phone to the payment terminal over that interface.

Industry committee  As a communications services provider, we help out all of our customers when they call, to try to understand how they use our goods as we move to a mobile wallet. That becomes another service that we will support, and we will help them understand how it works and how to use it properly.

Industry committee  I've actually been waiting for that question, so thank you for asking it. My belief is that from a mobile perspective, we are just carrying the card. We're creating a different vessel into which you will place a MasterCard, Visa, American Express, or Interac card, but we're open to any type of card.

Industry committee  May I try first? You've seen them in Korea. You've heard about them in Japan. You heard all about the Japanese folks using mobile phones for getting into the transit system. Honestly, that's where a lot of the stuff started. The problem was the transit system used contact cards and they wore out.

Industry committee  I think it will raise efficiency, because it will be easier to distribute virtual cards through the phone. I think that will ultimately benefit the merchants. Merchants prefer some card types over others—they love their store cards and they love gift cards, because people come back to their stores—and we'll be able to lower the barriers of being able to present those cards to the merchants.