(28 August 2012 – Singapore) Singapore wireless operators SingTel and M1 have both launched mobile contactless payments services, enabling customers to make purchases by tapping their handsets at the point of sale.Singapore’s government appointed a consortium to build a S$40 million (A$30.7 million) interoperable NFC infrastructure for mobile payments.
The consortium appointed last year included European vendor Gemalto, Citibank, DBS Bank and pre-paid card specialist EZ-Link.
Earlier in August, StarHub became the first telco to unveil an NFC wallet taking advantage of the infrastructure and it has now been joined by M1 and SingTel.
SingTel says that the mobile payments service that it has developed with EZ-Link will allow customers who buy an NFC SIM to make cashless payments by tapping supported handsets at terminals at over 20,000 points island-wide that accept EZ-Link, such as taxis, supermarkets and fast food chains.