Contactless payment technology is being integrated into mobile phones in Europe.
In some countries, such as Japan, people are already using their mobile phones for payments with Mastercard’s PayPass or Visa’s WavePay, which make use of the near-field communication (NFC) microchip.
In Europe, the availability of NFC-equipped phones has made a European commercial launch more viable. There are also an increasing number of shops that accept contactless payments.
Google’s Nexus S phone, which is available in most parts of Europe, has NFC technology. So is Nokia’s C7.
Nokia has said that all its Symbian-powered smartphone phones would include NFC chips from this year. Some Samsung’s phones are also NFC-enabled.
Everything Everywhere, the UK joint venture between France Telecom’s Orange and Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile, has planned to release a mobile wallet service by mid 2011.
Orange has said that it will introduce NFC services to most of its European operations by the second half of 2011.
The French government is also helping nine cities to introduce NFC services.
