The telecommunications industry is on a collision course with the banking sector, as telcos look for new revenue opportunities, setting their sights on the mobile payments services banks have been slow to pursue.

That’s the finding of new research from customer experience systems provider Amdocs, which interviewed 120 telecommunications service providers across the Asia Pacific region.

The interviews found 70 per cent of Australian telecommunications operators believe ‘value added services’ are important to their company, with such services expected to contribute up to 24 per cent of revenue to their business in three years time.

The industry is clearly expecting to find supplements for voice and data revenue, and it’s mobile payments that top the list of options, ahead of mobile advertising.

The survey found 95 per cent of all telecommunications operators have an active, defined strategy towards mobile payments, with billing on behalf of app stores and virtual goods, and prepaid top-ups the top three most popular markets being pursued.

If that statistic isn’t enough to scare bankers, there’s more. Over three quarters (84 per cent) of telcos surveyed are pursuing bill payment services, 79 per cent are investigating peer-to-peer money transfers, and 76 per cent are working to offer point of sale or wireless services to enable the purchase of products. And it’s all about the money, with new revenue streams the reason given by 83 per cent of those surveyed when asked the major benefit of pursuing mobile payments.

The sector is well aware of the implications for the banking sector, with 42 per cent of operators believing they are heading for conflict with traditional banks and credit card companies over mobile payments.

Partnerships between banks and telcos have proved elusive in the past – numerous contactless mobile payments trials have failed to progress past the trial stage. Just this week ANZ dumped its NFC payments trial with mobile contactless technology firm DeviceFidelity.

Clashes often arise when it comes to working out how much of the revenue generated by each payment the partners will receive. Telcos remain optimistic on revenue share, with the Amdocs survey finding an expectation of 14 per cent for bill payments, 9 per cent for peer-to-peer money transfers and 6 per cent for point of sale purchases.

But the more partners involved, the greater the likelihood for conflict. As credit card companies continue to take the lead in most partnerships, telco execs agree they should collaborate to create mobile payments standards – essentially competing on NFC initiatives from the credit card companies. On a scale of 1 to 4, Australian executives rated this idea 3.5.

So what will make telcos succeed over banks on mobile payments? Personalisation of mobile services is the area being most closely watched by the telecommunications sector. Banks have largely been poor at this, but 60 per cent of Australian telco execs surveyed say it’s critical to use personalisation, including artificial intelligence, to make recommendations to customers on their mobile device.

One group that is good at this is the online retail sector, and as traditional retailers embrace the online channel, they are taking what they learn back into their traditional stores. So instead of partnerships between banks and telcos, perhaps we should expect more between retailers and telcos?