Orange to introduce first international NFC payments service

From this summer, subscribers to the UK’s Quick Tap NFC service will be able to use their phones to make payments in Nice, home of the French Cityzi NFC service.

Orange's Thierry Barba
BARBA: 'NFC-SIM is poised to take off'

The first international NFC payments service is to go live this summer, Thierry Barba, director of ecosystem development at Orange Group, has told delegates attending the GSMA’s Mobile Money Summit in Singapore.

Users of the Quick Tap NFC service, launched in the UK by Orange and Barclaycard last month will be able to use their NFC phones to make payments in Nice, the test site for the French Cityzi NFC project which is also backed by Orange. The French system is set for a nationwide commercial rollout of NFC services from the spring of 2012 and Orange expects to sell 500,000 NFC phones in France this year.

“This year we will be opening new cities” in France, Barba added. “20 to 30 projects have been identified… NFC-SIM is poised to take off. It’s portable and secure for both the customer and service provider. It’s a very complex ecosystem but we’ve made it happen.”

Orange has also launched a commercial NFC service in Poland and is committed to introducing NFC services in the majority of countries in which it has a presence.

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