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Germany’s third largest mobile operator, E-Plus, has launched NFC payments with a prepaid wallet card, joining other German telcos, which have also launched prepaid payments applications on their SIM cards.

Vodafone Spain’s recent announcement of the planned launch of its co-branded prepaid NFC payment service SmartPass, could be the first NFC payment rollout from Vodafone, supported by Visa, since the two companies announced a nonexclusive deal to work together on mobile payment in February 2012.

Telefónica (O2) Germany has announced it will launch its NFC-enabled O2 Wallet in mid-February, beginning as a “friendly user test” on two Android smartphones that will enable users to tap to make purchases with the telco’s own payments service, mpass.

Telefónica Germany has announced it is moving forward with its planned expansion of the telco-owned e-commerce payment scheme mpass to the physical point of sale, but has apparently dropped plans to introduce its own brand.

Deutsche Telekom intends to make its move into the payments market at the physical point of sale in direct competition with banks, with an NFC payments commercial launch planned in Poland this year, before later expanding to Germany and other European countries.

MasterCard Worldwide and Germany-based Deutsche Telekom group have signed a partnership agreement that will help the telco launch a prepaid PayPass application for its planned NFC mobile wallet, NFC Times has learned.

German mobile operators Telekom Deutschland, Vodafone Germany and Telefónica Germany today announced an agreement to form a joint venture to expand their mpass mobile payment service to the physical point of sale using NFC technology.

Three major German mobile operators plan to launch a trial of their own payment brand using contactless stickers in three cities before the end of the year, NFC Times has learned.