Restaurants, buses and trains may resemble the floor of the old stock exchange over the next few years. Consumers are expected to use their mobile phones to buy and sell shares more than any other WAP application, says market analyst Datamonitor.

"Mobile broking" is expected to take the European online stockbroking market to new heights. There will be more than 16 million WAP-enabled mobile banking customers in Europe by 2004, representing one in 20 Europeans between the ages of 10 and 80 according to Datamonitor's mBanking in Europe 2000.

Retail banking functions are also expected to gain popularity. Scandinavia was the first to embrace banking via mobile phone and the majority of banks there have such services. Datamonitor predicts that Germany, France, Italy and Britain will follow.