Sean Moshir (News - Alert), the CEO CellTrust Corporation, a provider of secure mobile information management and delivery solutions, recently spoke at the Airline Payment Summit (April 9-10, 2008) in Toronto, Canada.

 

Moshir’s talk was on the topic of pitfalls and promises surrounding the mobile airline payment industry. As mobile devices evolve and offer consumers options for conducting business and personal transactions, Moshir said, industries such as air travel and other retail channels will find value in providing mobile payment options to customers.

 

CellTrust (News - Alert) is a provider of mobile software for the secure and trusted exchange of information on mobile devices. The company’s Secure Mobile Information Management Gateway (News - Alert) solution features secure SMS and a suite of mobile applications that provide advanced mobile messaging and marketing solutions to customers and resellers in the financial services, advertising, marketing, education, travel and hospitality, technology, and government sectors, among other global industries.

 

The first annual Airline Payment Summit, sponsored by Airline Information, drew more than 170 technology leaders and executive decision makers. Airline Information, as its name suggest, specializes in aviation-related conferences, consulting and publishing dedicated to delivering relevant and timely intelligence on airline industry trends and developments.

 

More than 200 airlines regularly attend Airline Information conferences and forums worldwide. This summit was designed to review ways of opening up new airline payment channels and opportunities for growth while driving down the cost of doing business.

 

In a statement, Moshir noted that the SecureSMS Gateway is designed to help the airline industry to leapfrog from thinking about SMS booking, to SMS buying and SMS checking. He noted that not only do mobile phones 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 passengers while en route.

 

CellTrust’s SecureSMS Gateway manages and exchanges messages via its Secure Mobile Information Management platform, giving businesses and government the ability to confirm that the recipient's mobile device is able to receive secure SMS messages, easily market and push the CellTrust SecureSMS micro-client to their customers' mobile phones.

 

The solution lets service providers receive and send secure text messages instantly; use the same set of APIs to send both secure and normal SMS or text messages; and definitively measure ROI of mobile programs and their effectiveness. The solution also allows no size limitations along with remote wipe functionality that ensures users can erase sensitive data if their handsets are lost or stolen.

 

Michael Smith, chairman of the Airline Payment Summit, said that 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.

 

He added that CellTrust’s Secure SMS solution inherently provides two-factor authentication. Until now, such robust security was a challenge to achieve, and thus CellTrust’s technology might by the mobile airline payment “silver bullet” the industry has been seeking.