Rogers to launch NFC payments in Canada
22 August, 2011
category: NFC
Rogers Wireless, Canada’s largest mobile operator, is planning to launch NFC payments by the first quarter of 2012, according to NFC Times.
A source close to the project said that the teleco will likely team up with Visa and at least one bank for the launch, but will not partner with another mobile operator.
No names have been revealed yet, but NFC Times points to Toronto-Dominion Bank Group, which has issued 3.6 million Visa contactless payWave cards to date, as a likely candidate.
Although Rogers declined to comment on the project, earlier this year the teleco’s vice president for new business planning, David Robinson, confirmed plans to distribute NFC phones at some point in the future.
Robinson added that Rogers has been working with the GSM Association to pressure handset manufacturers into working the single-wire protocol standard into future NFC models.
Rogers, which boasts 9.1 million subscribers, has been involved in a number of NFC payments projects in the past, including an internal mobile payWave trial in 2009 and a passive sticker trial for transferring funds over a network in 2010.
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