NFC Times Exclusive: A mobile-payments joint venture in Taiwan led by banking groups has chosen a trusted service manager, which could act as an aggregation service for a number of large and small banks in the country wanting to provision their applications on NFC phones, NFC Times has learned.
The joint venture, the Taiwan Mobile Payment Co., which was formed in February by Taiwan’s largest credit card processor and acquirer, NCCC; ATM and interbank group, FISC; and payments clearing house, TWNCH; chose France-based Gemalto to provide it with technology to operate a service provider TSM, NFC Times has learned. Three other TSM vendors submitted tenders in late March for the contract. Gemalto faces a year-end deadline for the platform to be live.
The joint venture partners rejected the idea of using a TSM hub being built by the island nation’s five mobile network operators, along with closed-loop payment scheme EasyCard Corp. That TSM platform is being developed and licensed by France-based Safran Morpho, which was selected for the job in January for a low price.