INSIDE Contactless is exclusive suppliers of "Pay by Mobile" NFC components

At the end of November 2007, six major banks, four mobile phone operators, Visa Europe and MasterCard Worldwide will be launching the “Pay by Mobile” operation, an experimental contactless payment system. 1000 test customers will have mobile phones fitted with INSIDE Contactless’s MicroRead NFC component.

INSIDE Contactless, the leading NFC technology and contactless chip designers, have announced that they will be participating in the “pay by mobile” operation. Inside will fit their NFC MicroRead chip to the 1000 pilot-scheme customers’ mobile phones. This operation, which has been tested on 200 traders in Caen and Strasbourg and involves a large number of manufacturers, is intended to simplify local payments by giving customers a quick, safe and simple method of paying everyday bills.

The 1000 “Pay by Mobile” users will have INSIDE Contactless’s microread® payment platform incorporated in their mobile phone SIM cards.

microread® is an innovative new-generation RF using NFC (Near Field Communication) short-distance transmission technology. When fitted to mobile phones, PDAs or PCs, this chip enables them to operate as wireless RF receivers and smart cards, or RF tags.

microread® is totally compatible with NFC specifications and includes all NFC options. The microread® chip has a “battery off” mode that makes it possible to complete a transaction even if the power supply is cut off, because the component is self-powering.

The INSIDE Contactless chip is currently one of the most reliable and secure payment-by-mobile devices. It is the select solution, indispensable for major players in the market. Remy de Tonnac, INSIDE Contactless’s Chairman and Managing Director, says: “With this experiment, Inside will not only prove the technical capacities of our contactless payment platform–which are already well known–but also the new convenience of use and the new experience such services can provide for users”

With this experiment, the leading players in the market have taken a bold new road. The “Pay by Mobile” project is not intended to be just a technical or operational experiment, but rather the first step towards the marketing of this new service.