HEADLINE NEWS
Singapore: Telco M1 Launches NFC with Two Payment Services and Three Phones
M1 subscribers can tap to pay for retail purchases with two applications in the telco’s M1 Mobile Wallet. One is an electronic purse issued by EZ-Link for retail purchases at participating merchants. The other is M1’s new co-branded prepaid card application, which supports MasterCard PayPass. EZ-Link also issues the prepaid PayPass application for M1. Other applications, such as fare collection using the ez-link purse, are expected to be introduced later.
M1 is one of three major operators in Singapore that have announced commercial launches, under the auspices of the Singapore government through its telecoms and IT regulator Infocomm Development Authority, or IDA. All three telcos, including SingTel and StarHub, are part of a consortium led by France-based TSM Gemalto chosen by the IDA to build an interoperable NFC infrastructure. The contract for the consortium comes with funding from IDA, which at the time it awarded the contract said that the agency and the consortium members would invest a combined S$40 million (US$31.6 million) in the project–a relatively lavish sum for a small project.
* 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.
Last update: Aug. 2012
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