However, whereas the single currency has opened up cross-border trade opportunities in Europe, the geographical boundaries remain to be crossed for mobile financial services. At present, it is cost prohibitive to access financial services provided in one country from another country via a mobile device. This, therefore, is currently restricting the cross-border capabilities that the Internet currently provides. However, a combination of technological advances and imaginative network designs will need to resolve this dilemma very quickly for mobile commerce to be truly successful. Strictly speaking, this form of wireless trading is not new.
Any investor can use a cellular phone to reach a broker's touch-tone trading system.
However the current wave of wireless trading is different. No personal computers, mobile phones or web-based services are necessary. Security does not appear to be an issue. Digital networks are hard to pry upon, trades are encrypted and nobody one else can use the device to trade without the customer's personal ID number. A look to the future Mobile payments are still in their infancy but will evolve relatively quickly once the appropriate standards are in place.