UK to get five ‘exclusively NFC payment-based towns’ by end 2011. NFC phone coming to the UK this summer | Mobile | silicon.com. Orange and Barclaycard set date for UK’s first commercial NFC service. By Sarah Clark • nfcworld.com • Published January 27th, 2011 • Last updated 27 January 2011, 00:01 British consumers will be able to use NFC phones to make payments at stores across the country from the second quarter of this year, Barclaycard and Everything Everywhere have announced. BARCLAYCARD & EE: "Key partners in the development of the proposition" Barclaycard and Everything Everywhere, the recently created merger between the UK arms of mobile network operators Orange and T-Mobile, have announced that the UK's first commercial NFC service will go live during the second quarter of 2011.
The long-awaited launch will see consumers able to purchase NFC phones from Orange and then use them to make payments from a new MasterCard PayPass prepaid account stored on their mobile phone. "When you get your new handset, you need to activate it and link it to your existing Barclaycard, Barclays debit or Orange Credit Card," Orange has told NFC World. Mobile wallets coming to UK in time for Olympics | Mobile.
Mobile phone e-wallets get closer to reality | Mobile World Congress. BARCELONA, Spain--Later this year you'll be able to pay for clothes, taxi fare, and dinner with your mobile phone and leave your credit cards and cash at home. Visa is planning a commercial rollout in the U.S. in the second half of this year of a service for allowing allow people to turn their existing smartphones into electronic wallets. It uses Near Field Communication (NFC) short-range wireless technology and includes real-time anti-fraud alerts and other features designed to protect consumers from fraud, Bill Gajda, global head of Visa Mobile, told CNET in an interview at Mobile World Congress 2011 here this week.
Visa was demonstrating its PayWave mobile payment system at the show. Despite the promise of convenience and ease of use, the e-wallet industry has gotten off to a sluggish start as mobile handset makers have dragged their feet on adopting NFC technology and retailers saw no need to install mobile payment readers if the phones weren't yet equipped. Here's how it works.