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Near Field Communication and all contactless technology

NFC Times Exclusive – Alliance Digital Technology Co., the joint venture of five Taiwanese mobile operators and transit fare-collection operator EasyCard Corp., is steering away from the TSM business, which was the reason it formed three years ago, NFC Times has learned. It will add a focus on providing mobile ID and authentication, the JV told NFC Times.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight: TAIPEI, Taiwan – Taiwan’s mobile operator TSM joint venture Thursday announced plans to launch NFC service in the second quarter, following a trial within the next few months–though it remains to be seen when the JV will be ready for a full-scale commercial 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: Slovakia’s largest mobile operator, Slovak Telekom, plans to follow its parent, Germany-based Deutsche Telekom, in launching NFC payments using a prepaid application issued by Deutsche Telekom’s ClickandBuy online payments unit, NFC Times has learned. 

A second of Australia’s big four banks, Westpac Banking Corp., said it will finally be ready to launch its long-planned NFC contactless payments service with Visa using embedded chips in Samsung phones by the end of April, the bank told NFC Times.

Former Safran Morpho e-Documents’ No. 2 man Julien Zuccarelli has been named CEO of France-based ASK, as the contactless vendor continues its turnaround and expansion efforts.

NFC Times Exclusive–People on the Move:
France-based vendor Gemalto has completed internal changes to its corporate structure, creating a separate unit for platforms and services and one for smart card products and appointing executive Philippe Vallée as chief operating officer.

NFC Times Exclusive: Taiwan’s NFC joint venture formed last year by the country’s five mobile operators and closed-loop payment scheme EasyCard has chosen a TSM provider for its planned TSM hub, NFC Times has learned.

Taiwan’s major mobile operators have been gearing up for their final pilots before NFC commercial launches, which are expected to begin on the island nation by early next year.

Far EasTone, one of Taiwan’s top three mobile operators, Monday announced plans for a large multiapplication NFC pilot among employees of its large conglomerate owner, Far Eastern Group.