A recent ISM Research report says that the mobile phone market is ready to introduce services such as banking, money transfers and online payments which can be made via mobile phones and related services.

In the near future you might be using your mobile phone to make all kinds of payments. Now a number of similar services are available on different cellphone carriers but a more profound use will come probably in the next years. This means that there will be services which allow users to send money mobile, to receive and maybe to get payment using nothing else but your mobile phone.

According to the report there are already countries where mobile phone operators begin partnerships with local banks. Such countries include South Korea, Japan and the U.S.. Also there are some technologies and features which might affect negatively and positively the mobile financial services. These include MMS, SMS, WAP, email and Bluetooth.

Of course, the mobile phone financial services will have their own limits as security will be the main concern. In Europe and North America security thoughts are much higher than in other places and here there will be a quicker education of people to assure them their mobile phone is a secure access device.

The report says that users in Europe and North America will initially test the service before getting into real banking operations such as bank transfer. First they will test the service with a number of less risk actions such as checking account balances and topping up pre-paid cards. According to the same report people in other regions will be taking complex operations such as making payments and transferring money in the first days after the service is introduced.

The mobile financial services may be close but not that close. There is much to be learned and more possible problems to be resolved. But in the same time this gives a first impression of the future of the mobile phone industry.