The mobile carrier Korea Telecom Freetel Co. Ltd. is testing contactless payments in handsets using chips from the French vendor Inside Contactless.
On Monday, Inside Contactless announced the agreement to supply chips for all of KTF's payment-enabled phones. KTF said in February that it would support payments capabilities using near-field communication technology.
Inside Contactless has already delivered 200 of its MicroRead NFC chips to the handset manufacturers LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics, which are equipping the phones on behalf of KTF, and plans to deliver 500 more in the near future.
NFC chips use radio frequency identification technology to transmit payment account information to a contactless reader and link the transaction information to the operating systems in use in the phones.
Inside Contactless said phones from 10 manufacturers and other consumer electronic devices already use its chips.
Juliano Yoon, its vice president of sales for Korea and Japan, said in a press release that the contract "demonstrates that the market is effectively taking off around the globe" for mobile phone payments.
