M-wallet: EasyMove, 1st French NFC Services-Dedicated Platform
- Caen-based TES cluster has developed EasyMove, a platform designed to help rationalise French NFC contactless services.
- This independent initiative will be made available starting 2012. It fits in a trend already being pushed today by several international manufacturers. The new platform will be managed by local administrations (trusted third parties) and will address all face-to-face service providers without fees.
- According to TES, EasyMove may be an alternative to operators-based solutions (including Apple’s and Google’s for instance) which may cause a disintermediation of the banking sector, or may even disfavour non subscribers.
- Among the already listed partners: Orange, Crédit Agricole and Crédit Mutuel (for their solutions, Kwixo and Pay2you) as well as the administrative region of Basse-Normandie (for its own contactless services: multiservice student cards, transportation, etc.). Other towns should soon join in.
- EasyMove praises simplicity and convenience; it is presented as an aggregator, designed to be used by just anyone, and is aiming to build up an interoperable mobile contactless face to face services-dedicated platform. The platform responds to French administrations’ requirements regarding privacy issues and insists on the part played by local administration as trusted third parties.
- This is the first French initiative of this kind, while other European solutions have started to be launched and as, starting 2012, players like Square (see August 2011 Insight) and Google should also enter these markets.