Less than a week after smartcard vendor Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) revealed it is hoping to breathe new life in the mobile wallet concept, a second smartcard vendor has signed a deal for its own, similar, product.
France-headquartered Gemalto is supplying a service management platform and NFC services to Vodafone, in a deal covering many of the operator’s global markets.
In addition to enabling mobile payments, the Gemalto’s Trusted Service Management (TSM) platform and NFC services will enable Vodafone to offer third party services from banks, transport operators and retailers, the smartcard vendor claims.
Philippe Vallée, executive vice-president of telecommunications at Gemalto, says the firm brings Vodafone “significant accumulated expertise from both the telecoms and banking sectors.” The carrier will also benefit from Gemalto’s “know-how in end-to-end mission critical systems,” he adds.
According to Christian Wirtz, Vodafone Group’s m-commerce director, Europe is “now at the beginning of rolling out a contactless infrastructure,” which offers the potential to “transform existing industries, such as financial services, retail and transport.”
G&D last week unveiled a similar concept, offering a combination of debit and credit cards with ID, loyalty, public transport and building access key cards.
