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Near Field Communication and all contactless technology

NFC Times Exclusive – Mobile operators are considering shopping for technology to launch a common platform to request tokenized payment cards from such providers as MasterCard Worldwide and Visa and to load the tokens onto their NFC SIM cards, NFC Times has learned.

NFC Times Exclusive – 2015 will mark the first full year of Apple Pay and expansion of the payment service internationally, along with the coming of payment wearables led by Apple Watch, and the much needed maturing for host-card emulation and associated tokenization.

NFC Times Exclusive: The head of mobile payments for France-based mobile operator Orange Group said he wants to talk to Apple about enabling the telco’s co-branded payment application, Orange Cash, on the Apple Pay platform. 

The NFC Forum has added the final major component to its device certification with the addition of analog testing, but the impact of the development on handset makers’ willingness to submit their devices for certification remains to be seen.

NFC Times Exclusive: With interest in host-card emulation continuing to grow and SIM-based NFC rollouts in need of a boost, mobile operators and their global trade association, GSMA, are pushing for significant cuts in the cost and complexity of TSMs and lowering other hurdles that have discouraged service providers from provisioning their applications on SIM cards.

The SIMalliance vendor group said its members shipped 78 million NFC SIMs last year, with Japan and South Korea again the top destination for the high-end cards.

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.

BARCELONA, Spain – It’s an oft-repeated goal by NFC backers–to enable customers to use a variety of NFC services when they roam in different countries by downloading the local applications when they arrive at the airport or at the point of service. 

NFC ecosystem players are moving to simplify the costly and complex process for putting payment applications on secure elements, as they face mounting frustration at the pace of rollouts–and growing threats from such alternatives as host-card emulation.

NFC Times Exclusive: As 2014 unfolds, the NFC ecosystem appears as unsettled as ever, with embedded secure chips expected to compete with NFC SIMs in several markets to store applications, and Google throwing its weight behind an alternative that could eventually enable service providers to avoid secure elements altogether.