Airtel, Oberthur bringing NFC payments to Africa
15 February, 2011
category: NFC
Oberthur Technologies and Airtel Africa are partnering to launch mobile payments services in fifteen African countries including Kenya, Tanzania and Gabon.
Oberthur Technologies is supplying both the NFC SIM and M-Commerce security solutions for the deployment, including customized NFC applets, integrated and specialized point of sale applications and NFC enablers for specific user handsets.
According to George Held, Airtel’s director of products & innovation, any non-technical or non-experienced Airtel Africa subscriber can use the new service to wave and pay for goods and services using only their mobile phone.
“This is a landmark in Africa and the first steps of an evolution of the payment ecosystem for mobile users, banked and unbanked, with no compromise on security,” says Thierry Siminger, Oberthur’s managing director of the Russia, Middle East and Africa Region, Card Systems Division.
The solution, which has been nominated in the “Best Mobile Technology for Emerging Markets” category for the 2011 GSMA awards, will be introduced across 12 countries at the beginning of 2011 before being launched in all 15 of Airtel Africa’s affiliates.