In Canada we have a limited selection of devices that are NFC enabled, top of mind is the Nexus S and the BlackBerry Bold 9900. There are many uses for Near Field Communications, the most common is the ability to make mobile payments and transactions. A recent survey revealed that 40% are interested in using their device as their “mobile wallet”.
Back in 2008 Rogers, Bell and TELUS formed EnStream, the company is also known as “Zoompass”. They’ve been working hard to educate Canadians on the ease of sending and receiving money from your phone. They also embarked on a trial with MasterCard’s PayPass that placed the “Zoompass Tag” on the back of your device, this gave you the ability to make purchases from select retailers. There was no word on what the outcome was, but it now seems that Rogers is planning to fully rollout NFC payments in Canada.
A report today by the NFC Times says that Rogers will partner a major bank, possibly TD Bank, and Visa (with their payWave system) to officially launch NFC mobile-payments in Canada. This is expected to happen sometime in Q1 2012 and will most likely have the charges billed to your credit card, or directly to your Rogers Wireless account.
Visa could very well be the partner. Back in May they sent out a press release stating their intentions to being the “digital wallet” to Canadians this Fall. “Visa will be introducing a digital wallet and services platform. The digital wallet will store Visa and non-Visa payments accounts, support NFC payments through the innovative Visa payWave application and deliver a wide range of transaction services to accommodate multiple commerce scenarios—including eCommerce, mobile commerce, micropayments, social networks and person-to-person payments.”
Rogers declined to comment on the rumour, however, a TD Bank spokeswoman said “TD consistently reviews the market and discusses the best approach to offer mobile payments to our customers with many players in the mobile-payment ecosystem, including Rogers”.
So NFC will eventually be coming to Canada, would you use it?
Source: NFCTimes
