NTT DoCoMo is in talks with Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group and JCB about investing in their credit card businesses in a step forward for the cellular company’s vision of integrating mobile communications with financial services.

“Credit card fraud has become a growing problem in Japan. For the credit card companies, a tie-up with DoCoMo offers a potentially huge, new customer base among the mobile group’s 49m subscribers”.

full article in Financial Times, see FT news

(note: in 2003 NTT DoCoMo announced a pilot program with Visa.)