HEADLINE NEWS
Norwegian Bank and Telco Launch New NFC Trial

Norway’s largest bank, DnB NOR, and its biggest mobile operator, Telenor, have launched a new NFC trial in the capital Oslo, putting a MasterCard PayPass application on SIM cards from the telco.
The trial is believed to be a follow up to a pilot the parties launched in 2009, in which vendors modified a Nokia 6131 NFC phone model to support applications on SIM cards. The trial, however, ran into some problems with communication between the phone and point-of-sale terminals for the participating employees. The bank and telco, along with MasterCard, had planned a second phase in 2010, but cancelled it after Nokia killed its planned standardized SIM-based NFC phone, the 6216.
The new trial will test a service dubbed “Tap2Pay,” involving about 250 consumers. They will use the Samsung S5230 NFC phone, which supports the standard for SIM-based NFC applications, the single-wire protocol. The consumers will be able to tap to pay at a limited number of merchants equipped for the trial in the Majorstua district of Oslo, including Kaffebrenneriet coffee bars, outlets of the Vita cosmetics chain and Deli de Luca Group restaurants.
Germany-based Giesecke & Devrient, which announced the trial today, is supplying the NFC-enabled SIM cards and is serving as trusted service manager–tying into MasterCard’s over-the-air provisioning service, MOTAPS.
Telenor has about 3 million subscribers in Norway. The group’s branch in neighboring Denmark last week announced a joint venture with other major telcos in the country to roll out NFC-based wallets next year or in 2013.
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