American Express, MasterCard International, Visa International and Japan's JCB have said they will announce a major new mobile-industry initiative Tuesday morning.
The companies declined to give details on what mobile and technology partners the consortium would involve, but a representative for the initiative said it will be a "major" deal.
The troubled economy has eaten away at projections for m-commerce over the past year; last May, a survey by industry researcher AT Kearney found that only about 10 percent of all cell phone users planned to use the mobile Internet to make purchases. That was down sharply from an estimated 33 percent as of June 2000.
But companies haven't given up on making wireless shopping a reality. Nokia and IBM recently collaborated on a project that will let people in Finland buy items on the Web using mobile phones as soon as the end of this year. Visa and Aether Networks have also partnered to develop e-commerce applications on pagers, cellular phones and other handheld devices.
This also wouldn't be the first time major credit card companies have stepped in and taken up what smaller technology companies failed to do in online shopping. It took a push from major credit card companies to make e-commerce a reality in the first place, as they squashed alternate Web currency companies such as Beenz and Flooz that had hoped to capture the e-tailing payment sector.
