Three Japanese and two foreign electronics firms announced Thursday the creation of a mobile commerce extension standard that will enable flash memory cards to be used for secure shopping and banking via mobile devices.

The three Japanese firms are Hitachi Ltd., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and Toshiba Corp. The two foreign firms are SanDisk Corp. of the United States and Ingentix GmbH & Co., a joint venture between Germany's Infineon Technologies AG and Israel's Saifun Semiconductors.

The companies said the new standard will enable flash memory cards to be used for stock trading, storing personal medical records and purchasing entertainment content including music and video.

"The secure memory card, which is integrated by this common standard, provides the simple ubiquitous life to all consumers," according to a statement by Masahiro Yamamura, a Hitachi director.

The firms said the new security features could be a driving force for expanding the memory card market, which last year saw worldwide sales of some 45 million flash memory cards.