Medford, Ore.-based Mobifyer, an enabler of contactless, RFID, and NFC solutions, has teamed with suppliers TranZfinity, eGrips and SCM to jointly launch a series of developers contests to increase the adoption and acceptance of contactless, RFID, and NFC technologies with existing in-market mobile phones. 

The NFC Forum and the Mobey Forum, a global financial industry group tasked with facilitating mobile financial services offerings by banks, have agreed to work together to further efforts to enable the delivery of services that will provide secure and interoperable mobile financial transactions.

The two organizations share a common interest in fostering the successful use of mobile financial services, and the new agreement will enable progress toward this mutual objective. 

A new white paper from UK-based telecoms management consultant The Human Chain looks at whether NFC technologies can gain market share and how they could potentially impact development of integrated NFC handsets. Essentially, the report reviews the business case for new NFC form factors and challenges the industry to address the barriers to market.

“We’ve all heard the technology suppliers talk up NFC technology, but there are still significant questions that the industry needs to address if it is to take off in the way that some analysts predict,” said Tim Jefferson, managing director of The Human Chain and author of the white paper, “Alternative NFC form factors – Will they gain market share?” 

The UK government, working in partnership with the mobile and banking industries, has released measures designed to prevent criminals targeting technology that allows consumers to use their mobile phones as debit, credit and pre-pay cards.

These guidelines include:

• Contactless payment functions, SIM cards and phones will be disabled as soon as they are reported lost or stolen.
• Transactions above the maximum contactless payment (currently $16) should require PIN approval.
• Consumers should be encouraged to add their details to the national mobile phone register.

Nokia has announced a new mobile solution called Nokia Money that will enable consumers with mobile phones to access basic financial services, such as financial management and payments systems.

Nokia Money enables consumers to send money to another person just by using the person’s mobile phone number, as well as to pay merchants for goods and services, pay their utility bills or recharge their prepaid SIM cards. The services can be accessed 24 hours a day from anywhere. Nokia is building a wide network of Nokia Money agents, where consumers can deposit money in or withdraw cash from their accounts. 

Zenius Solutions, a Silicon Valley-based NFC software company supporting mobile payments and NFC add-ons, has rolled out demo offerings of its first two products–ZeniusMobilePay, which enables NFC-enabled phones to conduct U.S. and EMV contactless credit card wave-and-pay transactions and ZeniusMobilePOS, which equips NFC-enabled mobile phones to read Contactless credit cards.

Both products work with contactless cards from MasterCard, Visa, American Express and Discover. 

GuestLogix Inc., a provider of onboard retail solutions to the airline industry, announced the availability of contactless payment technology with its point-of-service handhelds, certified for use with MasterCard PayPass, VISA payWare, American Express ExpressWay, Discover Network Zip and existing Near Field Communications programs residing on mobile phones.

The company’s move with contactless and near field communications technology opens the door to faster payments onboard. Flight attendants will be able to process sales in two-thirds less time versus traditional handling.