Cell Phones and a Cashless Society

Bank and Mobile Operator to Launch Commercial NFC-enabled Mobile Payment Service in Turkey in July

May 14, 2010

NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com - The bank and the mobile operator plan to issue 100,000 customers with an NFC SIM+antenna solution that will allow them to make payments with their mobile phones at more than 15,000 retailers in Turkey this year ...

NFC-enabled Mobile Payments Pilot to Go Live in France in May

May 14, 2010

NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com - France's mobile network operators and banks, along with Visa and MasterCard, the local transport operator, the city council and others will take part in Europe's first pre-commercial NFC pilot — which will be identified by the new Cityzi brand...

Extensive field trials of near field communication technology have been taking place in France for a number of years. The difference with the Nice pilot is that it will see NFC phones going on sale to the general public for the first time ...

Bankers’ Bank of the West to Offer Bling Nation’s Mobile Payments Service to Its 330 Community Banks

May 13, 2010

NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com - Bling Nation has signed a deal with Bankers' Bank of the West, a provider of correspondent services to more than 330 community banks in the Rocky Mountain and western states of the USA.

The deal will see Bling's tap-and-pay mobile contactless payments service being offered by Bankers' Bank of the West to its member banks in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. The service is already being successfully used by several local banks in Colorado and by Adirondack Trust in New York State.

"Our mission is to help independent community banks compete in their markets," says Bankers' Bank of the West president and CEO Bill Mitchell. "This partnership with Bling Nation gives our client banks access to a new realm of technology-driven solutions their customers will be excited about — and that's exciting to us."

"Many people incorrectly presume that the largest financial institutions and businesses are leading the charge in payments innovation," adds Bling Nation's Rod Stambaugh. "In fact, it is community banks, the type of financial institutions Bankers' Bank of the West has worked with for more than 30 years, that are truly staying in front of customer needs with innovation." Mobile payments are a necessary component of the financial institution, business and consumer relationship of today and tomorrow."

Chinese Banks and Mobile Operators to Create Single, Open Platform for NFC and Mobile Payments Services

May 12, 2010

NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com - Eighteen Chinese banks, card association China UnionPay, China Mobile, China Unicom and a range of handset manufacturers and industry suppliers have formed an alliance in a bid to create standards and a business model for the introduction of a single, open platform that can be used by businesses throughout China to offer NFC and mobile payments services.

Chinese bank card association China UnionPay has announced the formation of the Mobile Payment Industry Alliance, a new organisation designed to enable both standards and a business model for the introduction of NFC and mobile payments services to be established in China.

The founding members of the alliance include eighteen banks, mobile network operators China Unicom and China Mobile — but not China Telecom — mobile phone manufactures including Nokia and Lenovo, chip card manufacturers, terminal operators, systems integrators and academics.

The aim, says China Unionpay, is "to create a harmonious and sound industrial environment for the development of the mobile electronic business in our country."

"The founding of the Mobile Payment Industry Alliance will break the barriers in different industries including the payment, communication, chip, intelligent card and electronic industries, etc. and form a platform for communication and close coordination," the card association explains. "Parties of the Alliance will jointly promote the intelligent card mobile payment business adopting the financial account and the international standard on contactless communication defined by the ISO."

The members of the alliance will work together to create a single, open mobile payment platform that will enable "users from various industries such as the bus, metro, water, electricity and gas, cinema, petrol, hospital, commercial retail and many more" to offer payments services to their customers.

"The Industry Alliance integrates the consumer’s need, operator’s network capability, bank’s credibility as well as seller’s marketing ability to forge a mobile electronic business circle that blends both remote and short range payment," says China UnionPay.

China UnionPay and China Unicom have been working closely together on the introduction of near field communication-based payments services since November 2009. China UnionPay is testing NFC and mobile payments services in six cities and regions and, in February, China Unicom announced plans to introduce commercial NFC services later this year.

Until recently, however, China Mobile has been pushing its own RF-SIM technology and had announced the beginning of a commercial roll out for the technology in February. Last month, though, China Mobile acknowledged publicly for the first time that it was having problems and announced that it was also exploring the idea of supporting NFC technology too.