The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) plans to team up with industry players to deploy nationwide interoperable NFC infrastructure.
Through an appointed neutral Trusted Third Party (TTP), payment and other service providers will be able to reach all mobile subscribers through the three mobile operators in Singapore.
IDA has awarded a call for collaboration to a consortium comprising seven companies, including each of the major operators – SingTel, M1 and StarHub.
The participation by major players together with all mobile operators makes this collaboration the first interoperable nationwide deployment of NFC mobile payment system in Asia.
The other members of the consortium are Gemalto, Citibank Singapore, DBS Bank and EZ-Link.
Gemalto will be developing and operating the TTP infrastructure. DBS, EZ-Link and Citibank will enable a wide range of their credit/ debit scheme cards and stored value payment products, to be issued over-the-air through Gemalto, and stored on the secure chips in their customers’ NFC-enabled mobile phones.
These customers will be able to pay for their purchases using any of those payment products at NFC-ready retail points. The services will be launched progressively across all three mobile operators from the middle of next year.
Besides payment services, Gemalto will also be collaborating with service providers to deploy a range of innovative NFC mobile value-added services such as interactive digital signage advertising, mobile coupons and mobile ticketing. This will allow consumers to interact with these digital signage advertisements and download coupons, tickets and product information onto their NFC-enabled mobile phones.