MOBILE users are more likely to fall for phishing sc ams than PC users because mobile devices are activated all the time and smallscreen formatting makes the fraud more difficult to spot, said Sashidhar Thoth adri, regional sales manager, South East Asia and India, mobile communicatio ns at smartcard maker Gemalto.

Estimates show that by 2013, over 400 million mobile phone subscribers will use mobile devices to makes purch ases and the gross tra nsaction va lue growth from remote mP ayment will rea ch $379 billion.

Mobile payment firms see a huge opportunity in this high-margin financial services, previously enjoyed by banks and associated financial services companies.

However, security still remains an area of concern for both companies as well as consumers.

“The SIM card, being the most secure component within a phone, is the ideal device to provide mobile security. Additional security with OTP and public key infrastructure (PKI) technologies can also be integrated onto the SIM card.

That way, when the user carries out mobile banking transactions, the bank securely identifies the unique user via the security application residing on the SIM card,“ said Thothadri, whose company considers India a key market.

According to the latest report from Trai of India, there are over 850 million mobile phone subscribers in India, as of June 2011.