Russian Standard Bank launched its long-planned NFC-payments service on embedded chips in Samsung NFC devices, under an earlier partnership deal between Samsung Electronics and MasterCard Worldwide.
It’s one of the few projects to launch on embedded chips in NFC phones, despite high hopes for the technology beginning around two years ago. While a growing number of credible sources expect Apple to introduce NFC, and possibly also embedded chips, in the iPhone 6, that remains speculation.
As NFC Times reported last month, privately held Russian Standard Bank was one of three banks in Europe that were scheduled to launch under the Samsung-MasterCard deal by the first quarter, following the launch in December by Commonwealth Bank of Australia of PayPass on embedded chips in the Galaxy S4 flagship. The two other European projects, involving PrivatBank in Ukraine and Garanti Bank in Turkey, are believed to have been shelved, while Russian Standard Bank’s launch was delayed.