It's actually a no-brainer. If e-funds are given to the consumer in exchange for pre-payment and those e-funds can be used to pay for third party services, this is what we call e-money. So already in 2000 it could be envisaged that telco's and regulators needed to be aware of the e-money directive (see this article of July 2000: Where EMI-directive and mobile phone payment systems will meet).
In practice, the consequences need some time to sink in. So at the end of the month another GTIAD meeting will take place in Brussel to further discuss implementation issues of the e-money directive. This article in Mobile Today hints at this meeting (although in the legal sense of the word it should be noted that the directive is already implemented and the issue is more about compliance than anything else) and suggest that compliance activities for mobile operators will be further postponed.
