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Near Field Communication and all contactless technology

Although both Visa and MasterCard are downplaying the impact of the Isis joint venture on their mobile-payment strategy, there’s little doubt that the U.S. mobile-carrier JV adds a sense of urgency to everything the payment schemes now do with mobile phones.

After years of hype and false starts, it appears NFC phones will finally arrive in significant variety and quantity next year. And nothing says that better than a new job title at NXP Semiconductors, "NFC volume ramp-up program manager."

If Nokia isn’t careful, it will botch the launch of its first NFC smartphone.

While the joint venture formed by U.S. mobile carriers to roll out NFC mobile payment and other services is the most prominent example of telcos planning to enter the retail payment market, it surely will not be the only one. 

Given the publicity that DeviceFidelity has been receiving the past several months for its contactless microSD card technology, In2Pay, I figured the makers of rival contactless microSDs would be busy making excuses.

Dutch banks and telcos seem determined to deploy full NFC phones, not bridge technologies, when they launch their planned mobile-payment services in 2012.

Tech bloggers and online journalists who cover this industry worked themselves into a frenzy again the past week, this time over the hiring by Apple of Benjamin Vigier as project manager for mobile commerce.

Visa Inc. and MasterCard Worldwide haven’t said much in response to plans by major U.S. mobile carriers to turn their subscribers’ phones into payment devices. But what they have said indicates the card schemes will brand the telcos’ initiative as closed and bad for consumers.

Visa and MasterCard sure can keep a secret.

No, this is not a column about some plucky European football squad from a small country making it into the World Cup finals.