The partnership will see the organisation responsible for setting core NFC functionality standards working with the association which handles secure element specifications to support the development of internationally interoperable, multi-application NFC solutions. More
Vodafone, 2degrees and Telecom New Zealand have partnered with the operator of the country’s debit card and ATM networks to introduce a central TSM platform that will allow the carriers to “continue to compete vigorously for customers by developing their own innovative services on top of the open platform infrastructure provided by the TSM”. More
POS maker VeriFone has unveiled Paymedia Universal Acceptance Platform (UAP), a new platform designed to make it easy for mobile network operators and other mobile wallet providers to enable merchants to support their NFC payments, couponing and loyalty programmes... More
The joint venture between Sony and carrier NTT Docomo, which runs Japan’s Osaifu-Keitai mobile wallet service, has signed a deal with Samsung for the development of a new chip solution that will provide consumers with phones which work with both NFC services and Japan’s existing mobile payments infrastructure. More
“Financial institutions will have a great opportunity to capitalize on this by easily complementing their card programs without having to make major infrastructure changes to their existing processes,” says the card giant’s Russell St John. More
The payments giant has set out its plans for moving the US from magnetic stripe card technology to chip cards and NFC phones. The plans include incentives for merchants, integrated customer loyalty programmes and support for dynamic authentication technologies. More
VeriFone has completed its €600m acquisition of Point International, northern Europe’s largest provider of payment and gateway services and solutions for retailers and a supplier to PayPal’s NFC trial in Stockholm... More
Mobile network operators KPN and Vodafone have signed a cooperation agreement with bankers ABN Amro, ING and Rabobank — but T-Mobile has pulled out of the ‘Sixpack’ partnership and will follow its own route to market. More
MasterCard has certified secure labeling specialist Schreiner ProSecure‘s NFC-Sticker for use in contactless payments... More
Singapore’s IDA has awarded the contract for a national NFC infrastructure to a consortium including mobile network operator StarHub, DBS Bank, public transportation card issuer EZ-Link and NFC technology provider Gemalto. Commercial services are due to go live in mid-2012. More
US-based financial services systems giant Fiserv has announced that it has begun providing personalisation services for EMV chip cards and will implement EMV payments processing solutions in 2012... More
The company’s new Mobile Test Centre enables NFC solutions to be checked for compliance with specifications set by a wide range of industry associations and standards bodies. More
Magyar Telekom, Telenor and Vodafone have joined with MasterCard, OTP Bank and loyalty programme operator SuperShop to establish the Hungarian Mobile Wallet Association with the aim of developing a technical and operational infrastructure for NFC services in Hungary. More
Eric Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman, believes that a third of POS terminals in retail stores and restaurants will be upgraded to allow NFC payments within the next year, the Financial Times reports — and credit card companies will foot the bill... More
Korean mobile network operators, card issuers, consumer electronics manufacturers and government organisations have formed the Grand NFC Korea Alliance with the aim of creating a US$1bn business opportunity and more than 5,000 jobs. More
“I’d love to see peer-to-peer used for payment,” Google’s Nick Pelly told a packed audience at the I/O conference’s ‘How to NFC’ session, as he responded to questions regarding the future of mobile payments on Android devices. More
NFC specialist Vivotech has released VivoNFC Software Suite 3.0, the third generation of its near field communication infrastructure and provisioning solution... More
With everyone from Apple, Google and PayPal to mobile operators, coupon issuers and social networks set to need access to contactless POS terminals to bring their NFC plans to market, Verifone’s Paul Rasori tells NFC World how these new players could gain access to merchants’ points-of-sale — and who should foot the bill. More