Thailand's Kasikornbank is to conduct customer trials of Near Field Communication (NFC) mobile payments in Bangkok.
Participants in the Kasikornbank trial will use NFC-enabled Nokia 6212 mobile devices to make purchases at more than 1000 existing merchant locations in Thailand.
The bank has contracted with Helsinki-based NFC specialist Venyon to support the trial, with a view to future deployment as a Trusteed Service Manager (TSM) for full-scale commercial roll-out. The TSM provides over-the-air support for third-party NFC applications on the mobile handset.
Separately, Japanese card issuer Orico says it has been working with Gemalto and mobile operator KDDI on a small-scale technical test of a MasterCard PayPass-compatible NFC service, with a view to conducting wider customer field trials in the near future.