Mercator Advisory Group has launched a new report predicting the mobile payments market will soon become “war zone” fought over by mobile operators, handset manufacturers, payment industry heavyweights, and Silicon Valley giants. Caught in the middle will be merchants, who will have to choose which side they’re on - i.e., which of the many services to adopt.

The outcome will be determined by the pace of NFC roll out, lessons learned from in-depth pilot testing, and how quickly merchants will adopt new contact and contactless EMV terminals, according to Mercator. 

GlobalPlatform, a non-profit association in the smart chip industry, has announced the launch of its compliance program trademark, designed to ensure the creation of an interoperable end-to-end environment for managing applications on secure chip technology.

The association has appointed a dedicated secretariat who will manage all qualification processes for products, test tools and laboratories, as well as issue the GlobalPlatform trademark to qualified vendors in the identity, payments, transport and mobile industries. 

Google has officially released the first version of its Google Wallet app to Sprint.

According to Google’s blog, the app will be delivered to all Sprint Nexus S 4G phones through an over-the-air update. As a bonus, early Wallet adopters will be rewarded with a $10 free to use on their Google Prepaid Card. 

Tyfone has signed a deal with AboMem Technology Corp., a memory products manufacturer from Taiwan, to bring Tyfone’s SideTap microSD NFC solution to the People’s Republic of China.

As per the deal, Abomen will manufacture and service Tyfone’s SideTap products, as well as distribute them to consumers throughout China via AboMem’s established network. 

The Smart Card Alliance has announced the launch of a new white paper examining and comparing the different approaches to the burgeoning mobile payments market in the U.S.

“The Mobile Payments and NFC Landscape: A U.S. Perspective” provides an overview of the state of the market and evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of using NFC, non-integrated contactless, bar codes, cloud-based solutions, and SMS as mobile payments channels. 

Airtag, a point of sale solutions provider based in France, has announced a partnership with Orange to launch the first secure NFC-based Android app on the Samsung Galaxy S2.

Now on display at the NFC World Congress 2011 in Nice, France, the app uses card emulation technology to enabled users to collect loyalty points and download coupons directly to their mobile phone via Orange’s Cityzi SIM card. 

Collisannounced the debut of its Mobile Test Center during the NFC World Congress this week in Nice, France.

According to Collis, the center is designed to provide “one-stop-shop” testing services to every stakeholder in the NFC ecosystem, with the main goal of achieving a standard that will enabled widely accepted and interoperable NFC-Trusted Service Manager (TSM) infrastructures.