Gemalto has achieved MasterCard certification for its Trusted Services Management solution, which recognizes the company’s ability to manage personal user information for banking transactions. The certification applies to Gemalto’s Taiwan-based data center and enables the company to support financial institutions in the deployment of NFC services on mobile phones.

“MasterCard works alongside vendors to offer secure NFC payment solutions to its issuing banks,” said, MasterCard’s Andrew Smith, vice president, Mobile Center of Excellence. This enables financial institutions to rollout NFC MasterCard PayPass mobile services safely and will help spur the growth of contactless payments in the region.  

SCM Microsystems, a leading provider of solutions for secure access and identity, has rolled out a new portable contactless smart card reader, the SCL3711, that’s capable of supporting multiple contactless applications from mobile payments to transportation, access control and e-government.

The USB reader supports all major 13.56 MHZ contactless technologies, including ISO 14443 type A&B, FeliCa, MIFARE and DESFire. It additionally has the ability to enable devices with NFC connectivity just by inserting it into a free USB port or integrating it directly into the respective device. 

Credit card giant Visa, two banks and a mobile operator have launched a small NFC payments trial in Brazil. The pilot involves 70 people who have been given NFC-compliant Nokia phones that they can use to make payments at any retailer that now accepts Visa’s payWave contactless payments technology.

The banks involved in the trial are Banco do Brasil and Bradesco and the mobile carrier is Claro.

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An NXP Semiconductors official believes the single wire protocol specification has solved the chicken and egg problem that has dogged the mobile payments industry. Speaking with ZDNet Asia at the NFC World Asia event in Singapore this week, Charles Dachs, NXP’s head of product management, noted that lack of standardization has stalled many NFC pilots.

The SWP, first introduced by Gemalto in 2006, has been endorsed by the Global System for Mobile communications Association (GSMA). Dachs said the industry is still at an “early adoption” phase of NFC mobile payments–though consumers can expect “large deployments” in 2011 and 2012.

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Bell ID announced that it will be providing its smart card management software to the retail division bank of BancABC to secure, manage and personalize its Visa EMV cards in all five sub-Saharan operating countries.

With the implementation of ANDiS4EMV, Bell ID’s software solution for smart card management in the financial sector, BancABC has deployed a system that covers processes and security for the issuance of EMV banking smart cards. The system will be implemented at the Bank’s data center in Sandton, Johannesburg in South Africa and will serve the bank’s operations throughout Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. 

VingCard, a hospitality security provider and part of the ASSA ABLOY Group, has completed its installation of Signature contactless electronic door locks with NFC cell phone compatibility at the Sea Pearl Villas Resort in Phuket, Thailand. While the hotel is open now, the resort itself isn’t scheduled to open until the third quarter of 2010. 

Tyfone, a Portland, Ore. mobile financial services provider, has been chosen by Oregon’s largest credit union to supply the infrastructure for the financial institution’s mobile banking service.

Tyfone’s technology integrates the secure element , an NFC contactless chip and antenna on standard secure digital memory cards allowing memory card-enabled phones to become instantly capable of secure transactions and contactless payments. OnPoint Community Credit Union, with more than $2.8 billion in assets, will leverage Tyfone’s u4ia platform to first deploy mobile banking services with NFC contactless mobile payment capabilities to follow.

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