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NFC TIMES Exclusive –  Big U.S. acquirer and processor First Data plans to generate its own tokens for Mastercard-branded card accounts next year, NFC Times has learned, and a source says First Data is also in discussions with Visa to do the same, but Visa may not allow the processor to tokenize Visa-branded cards in place of the network’s own Visa Token Service.

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – The Clearing House, a group of the largest banks in the U.S., announced its first plans to tokenize cards branded by a major network, as the banks seek to reduce their dependence on tokenization by the major card schemes.

NFC TIMES Exclusive – The Visa Ready program, Visa’s effort to get new digital payments services to the market sooner by giving vendors a fast-track route for their products and technologies to be certified, may not be quite ready–at least as far as Visa’s tokenization partner program is concerned. 

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight ­– Visa this week announced a new list of 13 “partner” companies to help it distribute and manage Visa-generated tokens, which the network giant is promoting for use in what it hopes will be large-scale rollouts of Internet of Things devices that can do payments.

NFC TIMES Exclusive – Unlike at least some other major networks, including Mastercard, Visa has shown no intention of allowing third-party token service providers to tokenize Visa-branded cards, requiring nearly all issuers to use Visa’s own Visa Token Service, or VTS, sources told NFC Times.

NFC TIMES Exclusive – While Visa has said it is waiving tokenization fees for issuers that join its commercial tokenization hub, VDEP, and use its Visa Token Service, some observers believe the network will charge the fees sooner or later.

NFC Times Exclusive – When United Overseas Bank in Singapore launched its mobile wallet app with host card emulation, UOB Mighty, in November of 2015, it was the first bank outside of the U.S. to use the Visa Token Service, Visa’s on-behalf-of tokenization service.

NFC Times Exclusive – Both Visa and Mastercard have set deadlines for ending support for alternate PANs that a number of banks are issuing for their mobile payments apps, as the schemes continue to push their own tokenization services to issuers, NFC Times has learned.

NFC Times Exclusive – Fourteen banks in Taiwan launched mobile payments using host card emulation late last week or plan to do so in coming weeks, but none of the cards that the banks’ customers can load into their new Android wallet apps will sport the Visa logo–one of the two main bank card brands in Taiwan. 

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – The issue over availability of tokenization services and whether the major global networks, such as Visa, are allowing for a level playing field among token service providers has reached Taiwan–with a former prime minister and chief banking regulator weighing in on the topic–as Taiwanese officials decide how best to expedite the arrival of such mobile payments services as Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Android Pay.