Canada’s largest mobile operator, Rogers Communications, and one of the country’s largest card issuers, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, today announced plans to launch NFC mobile payments later this year.
The parties said consumers will be able to tap to pay with their CIBC credit card accounts stored on Rogers’ SIM cards in NFC-enabled BlackBerry phones. The telco said it would add other NFC-enabled devices after the launch.
An NFC mobile-payment launch in Canada has been widely expected this year, with the country boasting of one of the highest use rates of contactless cards, and with Rogers an early backer of NFC technology. Canadian subscribers also have among the highest rates of smartphone ownership worldwide.