Five of Europe’s largest mobile network operators — Orange UK, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom Orange, Vodafone and Telecom Italia — have agreed to work together to develop NFC standards, FierceWireless reports, “in hopes it will accelerate the technology’s prominence and make it easier for partners such as banks and retailers to deploy”:

Daniel Gurrola, vice president, strategy and business strategy at Orange, said that the five operators met at Mobile World Congress and decided to work together. The deal will include developing standards for the various players but will not dictate business strategy.

The agreement to collaborate on NFC was decided at the CEO level at the operators, Gurrola told FierceWireless.

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