14 DAY TRIAL // Six companies have decided to collaborate to offer NFC Mobile Payment services to their customers, for everyday mobile payments. The project has brought together companies such as DBS Bank, EZ-Link, Gemalto, MasterCard and StarHub, which are to trial the NFC technology for the first time in Singapore.
Around 1,000 DBS customers who also own a StarHub mobile plan will be the first in Singapore to use the NFC Mobile Payment Solution trial service. The trial is scheduled to start in December 2010 and is expected to last for eight months.
“With the rapidly expanding use of mobile devices, our customers are increasingly expecting financial services and payments to be offered on their mobile devices,” said Ms. Ooi Huey Tyng, Senior Vice President, Cards & Unsecured Loans, DBS Bank Ltd.
“We are happy our cardholders will be the first in Singapore that will benefit from the convenience of having the functionality of NFC-enabled chip embedded onto their mobile phones to make payments. Through this, we hope to further promote the adoption of cashless payment in Singapore,” added Tyng.
The trial involves the addition of an N-Flex solution which should turn conventional handsets into NFC-enabled mobile phones without any changes to the devices themselves.
The N-Flex solution works on SIM cards across multiple mobile phones and is the first of its kind that conforms to the Single Wire Protocol (SWP) as endorsed by the GSM Association.
All eligible users will receive a notification from either StarHub or DBS Bank, with instructions on how to register online for participation online.
They will have to visit the StarHub Customer Service Centre to have the Upteq N-Flex device inserted and mapped onto the SIM cards of their mobile handsets before they can start making payments with their phones.
The full service is scheduled to be generally available in Q4 2011.