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Near Field Communication and all contactless technology

Citigroup and MasterCard Worldwide will soon announce an NFC mobile-payment service in the United States with Google–with plans calling for Citi to issue a prepaid MasterCard PayPass application to be loaded onto Google’s Nexus S and perhaps other Android phones, NFC Times has learned.

Lloyds Banking Group, which bills itself as the United Kingdom’s largest retail bank, is beginning to make its move into contactless and NFC payment.

MasterCard Worldwide plans to trial an NFC-enabled iPhone attachment in Asia soon, the card network confirmed to NFC Times.

Five Taiwanese mobile operators and the country’s largest contactless payment provider met Friday for talks to consider forming an alliance or joint venture to help them roll out NFC on the island nation, sources told NFC Times.

Google NFC software engineers, while touting the “dozens” of NFC phones in the pipeline and prospects for compelling applications using tag reading and peer-to-peer communication, downplayed use of Android phones for payment with secure chips.

France-based NFC chip supplier Inside Secure has reportedly hired two investment banks to help it prepare for an initial public offering.

Turkey’s largest mobile operator, Turkcell, has announced its long-promised commercial launch of NFC services, though it apparently has only one full NFC phone available so far.

NFC phone shipments could approach 100 million units this year if Google’s rosy projections for Android NFC smartphone shipments come to pass, NXP Semiconductors CEO Richard Clemmer said during a conference call following release of the chip maker’s first quarter results.

Research in Motion, as expected, has announced its first two NFC-enabled BlackBerrys, as it kicks off its BlackBerry World conference scheduled for this week in Orlando, Fla.

The majority of NFC phones will come with embedded secure chips that can store applications, say research analysts–projections that will not come as welcome news to many mobile operators.

South Korean mobile operator KT Corp. is introducing the Samsung Galaxy S II for NFC payment and other services, a source at KT confirmed to NFC Times.

MONACO – Finland-based start-up 6Starz plans to launch a trial this summer enabling users to tap their NFC phones to check-in at restaurants and other establishments and to chat and exchange profile details with new friends.