Cell Phones and a Cashless Society

Wells Fargo to Run NFC-enabled Mobile Payments Field Trial

We want to be commercially ready early in 2011 to let consumers use their cellphones to make purchases in stores

September 2, 2010

NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com - US financial services giant Wells Fargo & Co has become the fourth bank to reveal that it is to take part in Visa's series of NFC trials. And Visa could be ready to launch commercial NFC-based services from early 2011, according to a Reuters report.

In June, US Bank was the first to say it would take part in Visa's trials of DeviceFidelity's microSD-format NFC device. Last month, Bank of America became the second US bank to confirm it was to take part in the tests and Turkey's Akbank also announced it would trial DeviceFidelity's In2Pay device with Visa.

Other banks are also being lined up for the trials, according to Reuters:

Visa is also working with other banks to test the technology, Bill Gajda, Visa's head of global mobile products, said in an interview on Wednesday.

"We want to be commercially ready early in 2011" to let consumers use their cellphones to make purchases in stores, he said.

Visa partnered with DeviceFidelity in February this year, with the aim of running a series of trials of microSD-based NFC technology before the end of 2010. DeviceFidelity's In2Pay product includes both an antenna and an industry standard dual interface contactless smart card chip that can be loaded with a certified payment application — such as those from Visa or MasterCard — using standard bank card personalisation and card issuing systems. This allows banks and other service providers to offer NFC services to their customers with minimum amendments to their existing infrastructure.

Once an In2Pay microSD card has been personalised with a cardholder's details, it can be inserted into one end of a specially designed plastic 'card' which can then be distributed to customers using a standard bank card mailer.

When the customer receives his new device in the mail, he simply detaches the card from the carrier, removes the NFC microSD device from the card and inserts it into his mobile phone. Software then installs and a prompt appears on the screen instructing the customer to enter a password on the phone's keypad. Once that has been done, the customer's handset is NFC-enabled for whatever applications the bank has chosen to install on the In2Pay device.

Hands On: Sagem Wireless’ New NFC-enabled Cosyphone

September 10, 2010

NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com - The first mass production units of Sagem Wireless' new NFC Cosyphone will begin shipping later this month and a few pre-production models are now in the hands of developers, partners — and NFC World. Sagem Wireless has put the NFC-enabled Cosyphone (that it announced earlier this year at the Mobile World Congress) into production.

The phone uses Inside Contactless' MicroRead NFC controller chip and is compliant with the Single Wire Protocol (SWP), allowing the SIM to be used as the secure element. The phone meets all current NFC Forum standards and supports both the JSR257 Contactless Communications API for tag reading/writing applications and the JSR177 Satsa API for secure communications between the SIM and the baseband processor.

Shipping of the first 2.5G Edge mass production units will begin during the second half of September with both a software development kit and a 3G version of the Cosyphone to follow in October.

The Cosyphone has been specifically designed to meet the needs of two target markets that have an overlapping need for simplicity. The first is the over 50s, described by Sagem Wireless's NFC product line manager Cyril Caillaud as 'active seniors'.

For this group the Cosyphone provides large keys, large screen fonts and a straightforward user interface. And, as an aid to those whose hearing may no longer be perfect, the phone also vibrates, rather than beeps, to indicate an NFC transaction or operation has been successful and the phone also includes a Hearing Aid Compatibility (HAC) option.

The second target market is 'pragmatic users' of B2B applications. Here, the phone's easy-to-learn user interface, a built-in LED torch, robust charging cradle and A-GPS functionality are designed to simplify the process of getting security staff, carers and other remote workers to report back to base by reading tags whilst making their rounds or visiting customers.

All units will also ship with a selection of NFC tags in the box. These are supplied as labels with a wipe clean surface, allowing users to easily annotate each tag and then wipe it off and re-label whenever they want to re-program it.

The Cosyphone is designed to be sold through mobile network operators and other companies, who will be able to put their own branding on it. It will also be available direct from Sagem Wireless in quantity and via its international distributors.

"We have orders from customers for the Cosyphone already," says Caillaud, and "a few pre-production samples are now with developers and partners."