Turkey’s Garanti Bank and mobile operator Avea plan to commercially launch contactless-mobile payment in July, using SIM cards linked to contactless chips and flexible antennas.
The new service will enable consumers to tap their phones to pay at 15,000 to 20,000 point-of-sale terminals that accept MasterCard PayPass cards in Turkey. The payment application will be stored on SIM cards and linked to a separate contactless or NFC chip attached to a flexible antenna, supplied by France-based smart card vendor Gemalto. Users will wrap the antennas around their phone batteries and then could use the handsets in a similar way to NFC handsets.
“It will work in most phones,” James Davlouros, vice president for innovative platforms at MasterCard, told NFC Times today. “It’s an option we perceive the market needs, and it seems to be ready.”