Oberthur Technologies, Visa Europe and Valitor have announced a partnership to launch Iceland’s first mobile contactless payment project.
The partners will initially outfit some 1,000 select participants with Oberthur’s NFC-enable SIM card, which will be delivered through Iceland’s major mobile operators starting in January 2012. Participants will be able to load the SIM into their phones to enable contactless payments - presumably using Visa’s PayWave technology.
The full-scale pilot, slated for the second half of 2012, will leverage Valitor’s existing 600 contactless Point of Sale terminals in the greater Reykjavik area. This, combined with Valitor’s established relationship with Iceland’s banks, will make mobile payments easily available to the majority of the country’s population, according to the company.
The partners say they chose Iceland as the “ideal” test market for the project based on the size of its population, its concentration in the Reykjavik area, and the country’s high mobile and card penetration.
The partners expect to launch a full commercial roll out by the end of 2013. ![[end]](/resources/bullet/nfcnews-4.gif)
