Monday, August 22, 2011

Canada’s Rogers Planning NFC Mobile-Payment Launch

Rogers Wireless, Canada’s largest mobile operator, is gearing up for an near field communications mobile-payment launch, NFC Times says.

The telco is planning to work with at least one bank and probably Visa, but not other Canadian operators, said the sources. Rough plans call for launching by the end of the first quarter of 2012.

Speculation for the banking partner is falling on Toronto-Dominion Bank Group, a major Visa card issuer, with four million card accounts. The bank has issued contactless "payWave" cards for about 90 percent of those accounts, with a total 3.6 million contactless Visa payWave cards on issue from its TD Canada Trust arm.

TD announced this week it is buying the MBNA Canada credit card business from Bank of America, adding nearly two million MasterCard-branded cards. Both MasterCard and Visa have been active in pushing contactless card rollouts in Canada.

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Directv-Dish Merger Fails

Directv’’s termination of its deal to merge with EchoStar, apparently because EchoStar bondholders did not approve, means EchoStar continue...