Giesecke & Devrient claims to be powering two firsts in European markets, backing a mobile payment service in Norway, and deploying a subscription management solution in France.
The smart card firm is providing an over-the-air (OTA) NFC mobile payment solution and compatible SIMs to Norwegian carrier Telenor, which is ready to launch the country’s first mobile payment service in partnership with DNB, Norway’s biggest bank.
Telenor is taking the service live after trialing mobile payments for the past two years. Strong uptake of a mobile banking service it launched in May 2012 hints at high consumer demand for the payment option – the firm signed up 200,000 users in the first year.
Florian Reithmeier, head of global marketing and sales mobile security at Giesecke & Devrient, says the Telenor and DNB service is “an important step towards making payment via mobile phone an everyday reality in Norway and throughout Scandinavia.”
In a separate announcement, the firm claims the subscriber management platform it is supplying to mobile carrier SFR is the first of its kind in France.
The OTA service includes a SIM installed with subscription management options enabling the consumer to configure their service. Giesecke & Devrient claims the agreement means SFR doesn’t need to stock preconfigured SIMs for 3G and 4G users.