South Africa’s Absa bank is launching what it bills as the country’s first NFC trial this month, but is using contactless microSD cards, not full NFC phones for the pilot.
An Absa Group spokesperson told NFC Times the trial will use microSDs from U.S.-based DeviceFidelity in three BlackBerry models, but not NFC-enabled models, such as the BlackBerry 9900, as was reported elsewhere.
About 500 microSDs distributed to employees for the trial will store a MasterCard PayPass “prepaid debit” application that can be tapped at a limited number of acceptance points at corporate canteens at the offices of the bank and mobile operator partner Vodacom and in some coffee shops. There will also be a regional transport application in Cape Town.