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Near Field Communication and all contactless technology

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – CaixaBank, Spain’s large savings bank and one of the most important early adopters globally among financial institutions of SIM-based NFC payments, has introduced a mobile-payments app based on host card emulation.

NFC Times Exclusive: Host-card emulation represents an “inflection point” for driving the rollout of NFC mobile payments and could also help the SIM-based NFC ecosystem to become more efficient and less costly, the head of payments innovation for major Spanish bank BBVA told NFC Times.

NFC Times Exclusive: Vodafone Group today announced the launch of an NFC mobile-wallet and payments service in Spain and timetables for similar launches in four other European countries–all featuring Vodafone’s own co-branded prepaid payment application, SmartPass.

NFC Times Exclusive: France’s largest mobile operator, Orange, has concluded a deal with Visa to support its launch of Orange Cash in France, the latest mobile operator to announce plans to roll out its own branded prepaid payment service on NFC phones.

Vodafone Spain’s recent announcement of the planned launch of its co-branded prepaid NFC payment service SmartPass, could be the first NFC payment rollout from Vodafone, supported by Visa, since the two companies announced a nonexclusive deal to work together on mobile payment in February 2012.

Spain’s CaixaBank, mobile operator Telefónica and Visa Europe, along with technology vendor Gemalto, plan to demonstrate NFC payment at next week’s big Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Telefónica Czech Republic has launched NFC payments with GE Money Bank and MasterCard Worldwide, making it the first Telefónica group operator to commercialize NFC.

Large Spanish retail bank, La Caixa, plans to begin distributing 200,000 contactless stickers this month, deciding not to wait for NFC commercial launches to start its mobile-payment rollout.

France’s No. 2 mobile operator SFR is the latest telco with plans to get into the payments market, today announcing it would roll out a contactless co-branded prepaid card with the help of MasterCard Worldwide, with the intention of expanding the service to NFC phones.

In the latest tie-up between a major telco and international payment scheme, MasterCard Worldwide has announced a partnership with mobile operator Everything Everywhere, the UK’s largest telco.