Disneyland Paris is set to test contactless and NFC payments in October. French banks Crédit Mutuel and CIC will participate in the pilot involving about 100 NFC-enabled phones and 1,000 contactless cards, both which can be used in Disneyland’s shops and restaurants.

The resort is currently seeking Disneyland Paris annual pass holders who have accounts with the two banks to volunteer for the pilot. Participants will receive discounts of between 20% and 25% on purchases made at the attraction.

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Zapa Technology, an Irish manufacturer of contactless stickers for cell phones, has chosen Postilion, a UK-based provider of payments software solutions, as its core payments platform for its new mobile prepaid, loyalty and gift card processing services for European retailers.

Zapa recently introduced its ZAPA TAG, a contactless sticker that can be placed inside or outside a mobile phone, which can then serve as a loyalty or prepaid card. Consumers need only wave an enabled phone across the ZAPA terminal, located at participating retailers’ POS systems to redeem an offer, access a service or collect loyalty points. It also hopes to eventually make use of NFC technology as well. 

O2, a UK provider of mobile and broadband services, says it is ready to go with NFC but is waiting on support from retailers and handset manufacturers. O2 began piloting NFC in 2007 with customers using a Nokia phone and backing from Barclays bank. According to Mobile News, O2 is now in discussions with large retailers for the deployment of the necessary electronic point of sale units and with handset manufacturers to enable NFC on all future devices.

“From our trials we gathered that customers love NFC. The challenges are the deployment of electronic point of sale systems across mass retail, so we are talking to large retailers and the transport industry about this,” O2 chief executive Ronan Dunne said.

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Smart Card Laboratory Inc., an international smart card provider based in Seoul, Republic of Korea, has become the latest organization to join the membership of GlobalPlatform, the international specification body for smart card infrastructure.

Offering a range of products and solutions related to smart cards, Smart Card Laboratory will be able to track the activities of all GlobalPlatform technical committees – card, device and systems. 

ARYGON Technologies, a provider of NFC and RFID reader modules, announced the launch of its new Multi-ISO HF Desktop and OEM Reader for ISO 14443 A/B and ISO 15693/18000-3 Mode 1 based applications. The new reader utilizes existing PC/SC standard for USB and also for the RS232 interface.

Features of the new ARYGON Multi-ISO HF Reader include: 

Almost every week it seems like a new Near Field Communication pilot is announced. As more and more projects are rolled out Re:ID will keep you up to date on where they are and what they involve.

After the jump find a listing of NFC pilots and deployments that appeared in the Spring issue of Re:ID. 

A joint venture between Citigroup and SK Telecom, South Korea, which offers mobile banking and payments services in the Philippines and Hong Kong, plans to expand to six more countries by the end of the year.

Called Mobile Money, the venture founded in 2008 allows consumers to transfer funds, pay bills and, in Hong Kong, trade stocks. According to a spokesperson, Mobile Money intends to test NFC technology next year.

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