M-wallet: Orange France Partners Microsoft on Launching Windows Phone 8

• During the Windows Phone Developer Summit, Microsoft presented its new OS, Windows Phone 8, to be launched this autumn in France.

• Also, Microsoft and Orange France will be collaborating on rolling out a mobile wallet in Windows Phone 8, to be primarily tested in France. According to an announcement made by Gemalto, its high-end UpTeq NFC SIM cards have been selected by the French telco in view of national deployment.

• The system has been crafted to support contactless transactions and Microsoft bets on a SIM-centric model making the Secure Element prevail. This wallet should enable storage of loyalty cards, coupons and other discounts as well as payment cards.

• The main innovation however relies in the fact that the same apps should work on any media (PCs, mobile or tablet). Microsoft  also explains having given more thought to the professional sector to ease the development of business apps, ensure data encryption, authenticate mobile users, etc.

Source: Windows Phone Summit

• Microsoft used to lag behind its rivals as it took some time to finally try to make a move in the mobile payment sector through proposing a mobile system and finding the best suited technological partner in Nokia (see February 2011 Insight). Today, it works on filling in this gap with its recently launched Surface tablet and this new announcement.

• The media to be propose should natively embed both contactless technologies and a m-wallet including payment features. Unlike Apple’s Passbook, access to bank cards which requires banking partnership has been panned, as well as features dedicated to the deals market, the use of which is to rely on various technologies (barcode scanning, NFC, etc.). The agreement provides Orange with exclusive launching in France, where the mobile contactless trend has already enabled the development of several projects including Cityzi.

• Payment features are already planned, and the SIM-centric model has been favoured to please mobile operators and avoid issues such as those which impacted Google Wallet over the past few months.

• Possible US launch dates are yet to be known but Microsoft may envisage working with ISIS at a later date.