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NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Apple’s expansion this week into 13 new European countries may not look so good on paper, but it follows a divide-and-conquer strategy that Apple has used effectively before.

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Google Pay launched today in Germany, making Google the first of the major backers of a Pays mobile wallet to launch service in the country. Yet, prospects for Google and any of the other international Pays that decide to launch in Europe’s largest economy are not promising.

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – As expected, Orange will continue offering its NFC-enabled Orange Cash Visa-branded card with the launch of its Orange Bank mobile service.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – China’s two large mobile payments services, Alipay and WeChat Pay, continue to roll out acceptance in Europe, North America and other parts of Asia, as they follow Chinese tourists to these destinations.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Germany-based white-label payments software and prepaid payments services provider Wirecard hopes to make its mobile payments app boon more attractive to German users by giving them the option of insuring their in-store purchases.

NFC Times Exclusive – As mainstream trusted service managers struggle to cope with a world in which their services are in much less demand, a tiny, self-funded start-up is seeking to carve out a niche as TSM for millions of fitness wristbands, festival bracelets and other lower-end wearables that might one day be enabled for payment.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Orange in Spain is the latest telco to announce the launch of a co-branded mobile-payments service using SIM cards and NFC phones, one of about 15 or so operators to launch globally so far. But it remains to be seen how many more will follow suit.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – With the first Apple Watch units set to be delivered this week, NFC payments for wearable devices becomes a budding market, though it remains to be seen whether consumers want to tap their watches or wristbands to pay.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Germany-based white-label payments software and prepaid payments services provider Wirecard is not taking sides in the debate between SIM-based mobile payments and HCE, despite its recent launch of the first wearable device to support HCE, executive vice president Joern Leogrande told NFC Times.

Germany’s No.