News
ViVOtech Powers Australian NFC Mobile Phone Payment Pilot for Bank
Silicon Valley-based ViVOtech announced that its ViVOnfc infrastructure
software for Near Field Communication (NFC) mobile phone payments is
being used by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in its first NFC
mobile phone payment launch in conjunction with MasterCard at the
MasterCard Masters Golf Tournament.
The deployment marks Australia's first NFC mobile phone payment pilot
and supports both credit and prepaid mobile phone payments. NFC phones
given away at the MasterCard Masters Golf Tournament launch can be used
throughout the country for payment at any contactless-enabled store.
"We're really excited to be the first Australian bank to trial
contactless payment technology using Near Field Communication (NFC),"
said Lynda McMillan, Executive Manager, Credit Cards Issuing at the
Commonwealth Bank. "ViVOtech's NFC payment solution was selected
because of its easy to use wallet interface for users and the company's
proven and highly secure OTA provisioning infrastructure to easily
manage credit and debit card downloads."
The Commonwealth Bank is the first Australian bank to introduce a
contactless payment solution like MasterCard PayPass to the Australian
market and is the first institution to introduce NFC-enabled mobile
phone payments into the country. For this trial program, ViVOtech is
supplying Commonwealth Bank with its full line of NFC-enabled payment
products including:
- A Commonwealth Bank-branded ViVOwallet mobile phone user interface
supporting easy downloads of MasterCard's PayPass credit and debit
cards - ViVOnfc Issuer Server that provides over-the-air (OTA) loading
and personalization of card details into the mobile phones - ViVOnfc
Control Server to provide over-the-air (OTA) management of wallet
loading and personalization.
"We are pleased to have been selected as provider of the NFC mobile
phone payment and OTA provisioning software technology for this
significant NFC payment trial in the Asia-Pacific region," said Michael
Mullagh, ViVOtech CEO. "Today our vision of a truly mobile society is
one step closer to reality as the launch of this program will allow
Australian consumers to use their mobile phones for credit and debit
payments at contactless merchant locations across Australia."
This trial marks ViVOtech's entry onto another continent, expanding its
ViVOnfc trial customer base across the globe. The ViVOnfc suite of
products has been used in over 16 pilot programs worldwide and enables
mobile phone payments, promotions and marketing programs. The ViVOnfc
solution was recently named as a finalist in the prestigious SESAMES
Award for Software in 2007 and is ready for the upcoming commercial
roll-outs of mobile phone payments expected in 2008.