Beginning with the UK, consumers in Europe will be able to equip their Apple and Android smartphones with an NFC add-on and use it to make prepaid contactless payments from later this year.
NFC microSD maker DeviceFidelity, prepaid card specialist Vincento Payment Solutions and MasterCard have announced the European launch of Moneto, the prepaid NFC payments service that lets smartphone owners add NFC capabilities to their devices via an add-on.
From “later this year”, consumers in the UK will be able to order a DeviceFidelity iCaisse4X add-on for the iPhone that comes with a prepaid MasterCard account which can be topped up from their bank account or credit card. The service will “subsequently” also be available to Android consumers in the UK and to customers in other European countries.
“Momentum around NFC payments is gathering pace,” says Kamran Hedjri, managing director at Vincento. “Following the enormous success of Kalixa, our prepaid MasterCard card, it was a natural to explore how we could develop an NFC offering. In DeviceFidelity and MasterCard we have partnered with truly innovative companies that share a common vision to make payments simple, secure and ubiquitous. Moneto is a significant step in achieving that goal.”
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