Contactless solution: Orange integrates NFC in SIM cards
- Orange will launch new generation SIM cards and NFC compatible mobile terminals in the second semester of 2011.
- This technology will also enable mobile contactless payment and transportation tickets validation, among other things. The new SIM cards will be deployed through Orange subscription offers in all European countries where it is present. The telecom operator now works with manufacturers so that more than half of the new smartphones can be compatible with the new SIM card.
- In France, Orange aims to equip at least 500,000 customers with compatible mobile phones by end 2011.
- Orange's initiative is one additional illustration of the attempt to further enter the promising contactless market, as it is also the case abroad. In the United States, Verizon, AT&T and T-mobile have formed a common platform, ISIS, to develop contactless mobile payment .
See November 2010 Watch
- Likewise, KDDI Corporation, the Japanese telecommunication giant and Microfinance International Corporation (MFIC), an American payment solutions provider, announced a partnership designed to enable the development of an open mobile payment platform on an international scale.
- Phone manufacturers are now ready on a technological level; Apple, Google and RIM have announced they would soon add NFC functionality to their mobile phones. An appropriate business model likely to allow the different players to share the generated values and the range of services to the consumers and merchants, are however still to be further enhanced.