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Near Field Communication and all contactless technology

NFC Times Exclusive: Despite the interest in host-card emulation in North America and, to some extent, Europe grabbing the spotlight, there is a good chance that banks and other issuers in Asia-Pacific could generally commercialize the technology first, sources told NFC Times.

Canadian telco joint venture EnStream has signed a new three-year deal with BlackBerry, as it expands its TSM service into provisioning secure payment applications for Canadian banks.

AUSTIN, Texas – The Isis joint venture will offer a TSM service to banks, which Isis says would enable the issuers to avoid hiring their own trusted service managers to download and manage their applications for the Isis Wallet.

NFC Times Exclusive: Chinese mobile operators China Mobile and China Telecom have begun ordering what is expected to be tens of millions of low-cost NFC SIM cards this year as they prepare for large rollouts, while China Mobile is also planning to pay device makers to put NFC technology in their phones, sources told NFC Times.

Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, said it plans to launch NFC-mobile payments with host-card emulation this fall, the first major bank to disclose plans for an HCE launch.

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.

NFC Times Exclusive: Scandinavian Airlines plans to introduce an NFC application for frequent flyers using host-card emulation next month, and if its new mobile app arrives on schedule, it would likely be the first airline to commercialize HCE.

Transport for London has launched a key user trial as it gears up to accept fares on the London Underground and its other modes of transport from contactless EMV credit and debit cards, and for the first time is beginning to sound positive tones about possibly accepting payments from NFC phones.

NFC Times Exclusive: Following the recent announcement of a nationwide launch by BNP Paribas, at least three other major French banks plan commercial launches of NFC mobile payments in coming months, along with the expected launch of NFC payments by the banking arm of a major French retailer.

NFC Times Exclusive: Mobile network operators will take delivery of at least two-thirds more NFC SIMs this year than in 2013, predicts operator trade association, the GSMA, though the impact of host-card emulation remains to be seen.

France-based vendor Gemalto Thursday confirmed its growth projections for 2014 and its longer-term forecast for 2017, despite the recent announcements of support for host-card emulation by Visa and MasterCard.

While continuing to support their applications on secure elements in NFC phones, Visa and MasterCard Worldwide confirmed their firm support for host-card emulation in the past week, as they continue to fast-track new HCE specifications to the market.