Japanese financial services giant tests Mobile MasterCard in Tokyo

Orico says it has been working with Gemalto and with Japanese mobile operator KDDI on a small-scale technical test of a MasterCard PayPass-compatible NFC service.

SMALL SCALE: Japanese financial services company Orico concludes its eight-day PayPass NFC trial on 10 February
SMALL SCALE: Japanese financial services company Orico concludes its eight-day PayPass NFC trial on 10 February

Orico (Orient Corporation), a leading Japanese consumer credit and co-branded card issuer with over 11 million cardholders and an extensive consumer loans business, is about to complete a technical test of Mobile MasterCard PayPass, an NFC version of MasterCard’s contactless PayPass solution launched in November 2008 that lets customers use their phone to make MasterCard credit and debit transactions at any merchant equipped with a PayPass-compatible contactless payments terminal.

The initial small-scale test has been running since 2 February and concludes tomorrow at a commercial centre in Tokyo’s Chiba Prefecture, where it is intended simply to verify that the system works as expected.

For the trial, mobile network operator KDDI provided the NFC-enabled mobile phones and SIMs, Orico was responsible for the issuance and operation of the mobile PayPass application and Gemalto provided issuance and application technical support. The three companies now plan to further investigate the market, says Orico.

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