France-based Oberthur Technologies announced today it has won a contract to supply trusted service management to French bank Société Générale, for the bank’s eventual roll out of NFC payment.
LG Electronics today announced a new NFC-enabled Android smartphone, the Optimus LTE Tag, targeted at the South Korean market, which will enable users to change the phone’s settings with a tap of the handset on NFC tags.
Google Wallet chief Osama Bedier late Tuesday said the Web giant had restored the ability to issue new prepaid cards to the wallet after implementing a fix.
Three Taiwanese banks are seeking to enable their customers to tap their mobile phones to make purchases with MasterCard PayPass using microSD cards in a full Android NFC phone from HTC, as well as an iPhone attachment with an embedded chip, as part of separate NFC mobile-payment projects.
Germany-based Giesecke & Devrient has announced it has won a contract to serve as trusted service manager for Australia’s Commonwealth Bank for the bank’s contactless-mobile payment rollout.
NXP Semiconductors CEO Rick Clemmer said the chip maker has notched design wins for more than 130 handsets and tablets, giving it an “Intel-like” market share for the number of devices being designed with NFC chips.
France-based NFC chip supplier Inside Secure has relaunched its initial public offering, planning to raise up the €79 million (US$103.4 million), as it seeks to stay competitive in an increasingly crowded NFC market.
Inside Secure today announced it has shipped 20 million NFC chips the past 12 months and said its chips will be used by a leading phone maker on a major mobile platform–as it seeks to build interest in its renewed IPO.
Reports are citing comments from Microsoft vice president and Windows Phone manager Joe Belfiore as emphasizing an NFC-based “wallet experience” for the software giant’s planned Windows Phone 8 platform.
2012 was going to be the year that the new era of NFC-based mobile commerce had finally arrived–with Google Wallet rolling out widely, mobile operators in the U.S. and Europe making significant inroads with their own mobile wallets and big Asian m-commerce players generally commercializing NFC, as well.
It will be three or four years before NFC-based payment becomes commonplace in smartphones—but those players that want to take advantage of the trend had better start partnering today.
While doubts continue to grow that the next iPhone will support NFC, Apple has been granted a patent for incorporating an NFC antenna into the display of its iMac desktop computers and potentially other devices.
A survey conducted for consumer electronics shopping and review site Retrevo showed that only a little more than one in five respondents said they wanted NFC and a mobile wallet on their next mobile phone, while 53% said they were not interested and 26% didn't know what NFC or a mobile wallet was.
NXP Semiconductors CEO Richard Clemmer said he would be “surprised” if the next iPhone supports Near Field Communication–the most important source yet to express doubts that Apple will adopt NFC this year.
Semiconductor suppliers will ship a forecasted 70 million NFC chips to phone manufacturers this year to incorporate in their handsets, but Apple will not be one of those device makers, believes UK-based research firm IMS Research.
Doubts are growing that Apple will include NFC in the next iPhone, with sources from some mobile operators reportedly saying Apple has told them it would not adopt the technology this year.
Apple has posted two new job openings on its site, adding fuel to rumors that the company is planning to incorporate NFC in its next iPhone and might support payments–though neither of the job postings mentions NFC by name.
