Cr?dit Mutuel Launches French Mobile phone Payment Pilot
French bank Cr?dit Mutuel and mobile operator NRJ Mobile are to launch a mobile phone-based contactless payments trial this November in Strasbourg, France. The trial will test consumer acceptance of wireless payments by equipping 200 customers of Cr?dit Mutuel and NRJ Mobile with mobile phones that act as payments devices.
Cr?dit Mutuel says the participants will use their mobile phones to make payments in local cinemas, restaurants and supermarkets. Around 50 Strasbourg merchants are taking part in the pilot. The SIM (subscriber identity module) cards of the phones issued for the trial act as EMV-compliant bank cards. Because the user's payment card information is effectively embedded on the SIM card, there is no need for a second, payments-related smart card to be included in the phone. Cr?dit Mutuel says that the mobile phones' embedded bank cards use Near Field Communications (NFC) technology and MasterCard's contactless PayPass system to communicate with POS terminals. Besides Cr?dit Mutuel and NRJ Mobile other partners in the pilot are Gemalto, the Amsterdam, Netherlands-based supplier of the SIM cards used in the trial; Inside Contactless, an Aix en Provence, France-based contactless card specialist; MasterCard; Sagem Communication, the Paris, France-based supplier of the handsets; and Sagem Mon?tel, which is supplying the POS terminals. To make payments customers must hold their phones at a distance of less than 5 cm from POS terminals and authenticate the payment by entering their PIN on the phone's own keypad. Related Links
www.creditmutuel.fr (pdf)
www.sagem.com
www.gemalto.com/pages/
www.insidecontactless.com/
www.nrjmobile.frl
www.mastercard.com
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