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Five banks in Taiwan are expected to receive approval from regulators by next month that would allow them to issue mobile credit cards that could be downloaded over the air to SIM cards in NFC phones.

Taiwan’s Fair Trade Commission has approved a joint venture among Taiwan’s five mobile operators and its major contactless payments service provider, EasyCard Corp., to build an NFC payments platform, but with conditions.

Giesecke & Devrient Secure Flash Solutions has announced a trial launched last month in Taiwan by Cathay United Bank of mobile payment applications running on microSD cards in full NFC phones.

Handset maker HTC and Cathay United Bank of Taiwan, among other parties, are expected to announce plans to launch an NFC mobile-payment project putting a MasterCard PayPass credit application on microSD cards that can run in a full NFC phone model from HTC.

Three Taiwanese banks are seeking to enable their customers to tap their mobile phones to make purchases with MasterCard PayPass using microSD cards in a full Android NFC phone from HTC, as well as an iPhone attachment with an embedded chip, as part of separate NFC mobile-payment projects.

Taiwan’s five mobile operators and its major contactless payment provider plan to sign a memo of understanding tomorrow with the goal of forming an Isis-style joint venture to help them roll out NFC services, NFC Times has learned.

A top executive of EasyCard Corp. assured the public about the safety and security of the more than 18.2 million EasyCards that will have an upgraded function as electronic-wallets for shopping at designated retailing outlets (in Taipei, Taiwan) beginning April 1. (The China Post)