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Near Field Communication and all contactless technology

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – France-based Gemalto estimates it is losing around €30 million (US$33.8 million) in revenue per quarter from the closing of the Softcard mobile-payments service in the U.S. last March–a setback that will end up costing the vendor nearly €100 million in lost sales this year and around €50 million in profit.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Samsung is hiring established TSM vendors to assist with the provisioning and secure element management for its forthcoming Samsung Pay service, at least in some markets, sources told NFC Times.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Gemalto CEO Olivier Piou said revenue from the vendor’s trusted service management business fell in the first quarter and would stay down for the rest of the year, while indicating Gemalto is no longer seeing many TSM tenders from telcos.

NFC Times Exclusive – Is the TSM, as we know it, dying? Predictably, the three major global trusted service managers say no.

NFC Times Exclusive – The public relations debacle Gemalto faced following revelations last month that U.S. and UK spy agencies had stolen keys from its SIM cards is not the only problem the France-based vendor has had to deal with regarding SIMs.

U.S.-based Mozido has acquired majority ownership of SK C&C USA, known as CorFire, giving the Austin-based supplier of cloud-based, white-label mobile payments and commerce products NFC technology.

NFC Times Exclusive – With the role of the TSM coming under increasing pressure for being too complex and costly, Gemalto, the world’s largest TSM, is seeking to reposition its TSM offer–promoting it as being part of a large “trusted services hub,” as the France-based vendor tries to convince more banks to provision their credit and debit cards on NFC SIMs.

France-based Gemalto is forecasting double-digit growth in revenue this year, following a strong 2012, in which it reported gains in both sales and profit and the first significant returns for its trusted service management business.

Research In Motion continues to promote its own trusted service management service–the only handset maker to offer one–announcing Wednesday approval by Visa of the service to manage secure elements on NFC phones.

Smart card and ID security company Morpho hopes to increase its EMV bank card business, as well as expand its trusted service management unit, with its acquisition of the European personalization and card manufacturing operations of American Banknote Corp.