Major step towards a global interoperable mobile payments system

January 29th 2008, Aix en Provence–Over the next few months, 12 mobile operators will run trials of contactless mobile payment services in Australia, France, Ireland, Korea, Malaysia, Norway, The Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Turkey and the U.S. as a precursor to commercial launches. The trials form part of the GSMA’s Pay-Buy-Mobile initiative, which is designed to provide a single global approach to enabling contactless payments using a mobile phone. Consumers will be able to use their handsets to quickly, easily and securely pay for goods and services in shops, restaurants and train stations.

INSIDE Contactless’ MicroRead™ NFC chip is included in most of the handsets to be used in the trials under the Pay-Buy-Mobile initiative.

The technology implemented by INSIDE will allow the mobile operators to quickly deploy SIM based applications, thanks to a direct link between the NFC chip and the SIM card, via the standard SWP protocol.

“This is the result of several years of early investments from INSIDE Contactless, where we were able to anticipate the standards and produce the first NFC chip with SWP interface” said Philippe Martineau, EVP NFC Business Line

One of the characteristics of INSIDE’s MicroRead technology is the capacity to behave as a router in the phone rather than just a simple modem, establishing secure connections between different devices, giving phone manufacturers flexibility to address various market applications and regions.

INSIDE’s NFC chip, MicroRead can communicate with existing contactless payment systems to deliver a wide range of secure, interoperable and transparent services, such as credit and debit payments. There are 35 mobile operators representing 1.3 billion customers participating in the initiative.

Both consumers and merchants see significant benefits from using the mobile phone as a payment form factor at point of sale, according to research carried out by Serrula on behalf of the GSMA. Two-thirds of the 2,574 consumers in 17 countries surveyed said that they expect to begin using their mobile phone to pay at point of sale within two years of the service becoming available. Moreover, 50% of the 240 merchants from 10 countries surveyed see promotional opportunities in using the mobile phone as a payment device.

About microread®

microread® is an innovative, next-generation RF single silicon chip that uses Near Field Communication (NFC) for proximity data transactions. Incorporated into cell phones, PDAs or PCs, it enables them to operate like RF readers AND contactless smart cards or RF tags. microread® is fully compliant with NFC’s specifications and includes all options of NFC. It incorporates a battery off mode that enables a transaction to occur despite the fact that the phone’s battery is off as it is a self powered chip.

About INSIDE Contacless

As the only fabless semiconductor company focused exclusively upon contactless chip platforms, INSIDE Contactless is a market leader in Near Field Communication (NFC), contactless payments, and access control. Innovation in contactless technology has led to more than 55 patents granted to INSIDE, including several essential NFC technology patents. INSIDE is the #1 market share provider of contactless bank card applications in the world, with more than 35 million MicroPass intelligent payment platforms delivered from launch in 2005 through 2007. These MicroPass platforms power cards from more than 20 leading bank card issuers. More than 25 key partners around the world, including major card manufacturers and handset providers, have successfully delivered contactless products such as payment & access cards, point of sale terminals, NFC enabled mobile handsets, and other products which are ‘powered by INSIDE’. INSIDE Contactless is headquartered in Aix-en-Provence, France, with offices in Shanghai, Singapore, Poland, San Francisco, and Boston. For more information, please visit http://www.insidecontactless.com.

Contacts

Elise Koenig
AxiCom
+33 1 41 06 18 07
elise@axicom-france.com

Jean-Marie Amoros
AxiCom
+33 1 41 06 18 05
jeanmarie@axicom-france.com