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France: Dual-City Payez-Mobile Trial Tests Interoperability (Caen)
Pivotal NFC retail payment trial, along with companion trial in Alsatian city of Strasbourg, involving seven major French banks, three major mobile operators, three NFC handsets supporting the application on the SIM.
In addition to testing interoperability among mobile operators, banks and NFC handsets, the Payez Mobile, or Pegasus, pilots have also demonstrated that more than one SIM supplier and POS terminal vendor could work together. Crédit Mutuel-CIC bank launched a trial in Nov. 2006 in Strasbourg with its partly owned mobile virtual network operator NRJ Mobile and later SFR, testing a MasterCard PayPass application.
Trials in Strasbourg and Caen proved interoperability could work among all major banks and telcos in a country and was perhaps the first time card schemes Visa and MasterCard worked together on an NFC project. The Payez Mobile trial also led to the creation of the AEPM, an important association of banks and telcos promoting the rollout of NFC mobile payment in France and beyond. It also helped clear the way for the first NFC demonstration project planned for the Southeastern French city of Nice by March of 2010. But socialist politicians that control Caen were not happy their right-wing counterparts in Nice got the first NFC demonstration project with help from cabinet officials in the conservative administration of President Nicolas Sarkozy—especially since Caen has already been the site of two important NFC trials— Pegasus and an earlier pilot launched by France Telecom-Orange. Expect the demonstration project to later move to Caen and also Strasbourg.
Follow-up surveys showed more than 90% of users said they were satisfied with tapping their NFC phones to pay and 59% stated that they would use this service once available. Users also said they wanted more merchant locations at which to tap. Surveys also found about half of users choose the option to enter a passcode on their handsets even for low-value purchase, below 20 euros.
* Trusted Service Manager: Defined loosely to include companies or other organizations securely distributing, provisioning and managing applications, generally over the air, on secure elements in NFC mobile phones; or licensing their platforms for this purpose.
N/A: Not available or not applicable.
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