Credit card companies realize there could be gold in wireless e-commerce so they're launching the Mobile Payment Forum to recommend standards for embedding e-commerce security in wireless networks and devices.

"Clearly we see there is a significant opportunity here," Simon Pugh, MasterCard International's vice president of infrastructure and standards, told Communications Today.

And increasing mobile e-commerce by making the process secure would benefit the banks affiliated with the credit card companies, said Joe Chouinard, vice president of new e-commerce channels for Visa International. "Our goals and objectives are to make money for our members," Chouinard said.

But the existing state of security in wireless networks and devices isn't conducive to mobile e-commerce. "That's really the matter we have to address," Pugh said. "They're all designed around you being able to make a phone call...as confidently as you would from a normal fixed-line phone and for the carriers to be protected against fraud."

"We want to take a look at the entire mobile network," Chouinard added. "We all feel strongly that mobile will become a strategic asset and a strategic channel for all of us."