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Near Field Communication and all contactless technology

NFC Times Exclusive – The high penetration of contactless point-of-sale terminals and high use of contactless bank cards in Poland has spurred the launch of HCE mobile wallets by some Polish banks, but use does not appear to be taking off yet–at least if one bank’s project is any guide.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Microsoft, which has written off more than $8 billion from its failed Nokia acquisition and which is expected to fully pull the plug on its consumer smartphone hardware business, nonetheless believes a viable wallet app is a must-have to keep its Windows 10 operating system for phones viable–although its announcement this week of Microsoft Wallet is surrounded by unknowns, including exactly when the service will generally launch.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight –  Wells Fargo’s announcement this week that it plans to launch mobile payments from its own app this summer using host card emulation technology would make it the second major U.S. issuer to offer HCE-enabled service from its own Android app, following Capital One, though Wells Fargo plans to make the payments service part of its mobile-banking app.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Barclays has no current plans to support Google’s Android Pay service or Samsung Pay because by adding the Contactless Mobile functionality to the Barclays Mobile Banking app, the company “removed the need to do something else,” a Barclays spokeswoman confirmed to NFC Times.

NFC Times Exclusive insight – Yandex.Money, sometimes called the “Russian PayPal,” is using host card emulation for its new NFC-enabled payments service, a Yandex.Money representative told NFC Times. PayPal earlier told NFC Times it also plans to use HCE for its app in the U.S.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight –  France’s domestic debit scheme Cartes Bancaires has been gearing up for the past year to launch a tokenization service for French issuers, with commercial service expected in coming months, including in support of HCE apps launched by banks and possibly for “OEM Pay” services.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – While Poland has among the highest concentrations of contactless point-of-sale terminals globally, NFC mobile payments has not yet taken off.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Toronto-Dominion Bank, one of Canada’s largest banks, is the first in the country to adopt Visa's tokenization technology and the third outside the U.S. that have been announced so far using the payment scheme’s tokenization service.

NFC Times Excusive – When Taiwan’s No. 3 credit card issuer, E.Sun Commercial Bank, held a press conference with Visa Dec. 28 to announce it was the first bank on the island nation to launch HCE-based mobile payments commercially, it also presented Hewlett Packard Enterprise as its technology supplier for the project.

NFC Times Exclusive – BARCELONA: PayPal will use host card emulation and the contactless acceptance network of Discover Financial Services to support NFC in the U.S. from the planned new version of its mobile app, NFC Times has learned.