Telefónica Digital wil launch mobile wallet services in Europe and Latin America in partnership with Sybase 365. Telefónica said that it will unveil its NFC-compatible "m-wallet" service during the first half of this year, and is working with the banking industry to enable customers to store their current account details on their m-wallet.
"The mobile wallet lies at the heart of our financial services strategy and it is crucial that we deliver a strong, simple and secure user experience to our customers," Joaquin Mata, head of financial services at Telefónica Digital, said in a statement.
Mata said that Sybase 365 will help Telefónica Digital develop a range of services from stored value accounts to peer-to-peer transfers, and NFC as the technology becomes more widespread. Sybase joins a number of companies involved with this project, including Giesecke & Devrient which is providing the platform for NFC services.
However, a Telefónica spokesman told Total Telecom that the UK is excluded from this initiative: "In the case of the UK., it's important to note that Sybase is not our partner," adding that O2 UK remains committed to the m-payments JV, codenamed Project Oscar, it has with Vodafone and Everything Everywhere.
For more:
- see this release
- see this Mobile Payments Today article
- see this Total Telecom article
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