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Swiss bank Credit Suisse and five other parties have joined to launch a small test of contactless payment using Near Field Communication-enabled mobile phones. As reported by CardLine Global and sister publication Cards&Payments on 18 Sept., the trial involves Swisscard, which manages the credit cards Credit Suisse issues, and Visa Europe as a likely participant. According to a statement issued Friday, Swisscard and Visa are working on the trial with Swisscom, Switzerland's largest mobile-network operator; PostFinance, the banking arm of Swiss Post; and processor and acquirer Telekurse Multipay. The trial, which the parties bill as the first for NFC mobile payments in Switzerland, is scheduled to last until November. The test involves 150 employees of the participating companies who can tap their phones to pay for meals at restaurants or cafeterias in their corporate workplaces. The trial preloads Visa's contactless-payment application, payWave, on older-model Nokia 6131 NFC phones. It remained unclear whether payment applications from both Credit Suisse and PostFinance would run on the phones. A Swisscard spokesperson says the first payment application to be tested is issued by Credit Suisse. The spokesperson says another trial phase would test payments from PostFinance. The parties say the trial is designed to test both the technology and "user-friendliness" of NFC with an eye toward adopting the technology for a commercial launch. Asked what the trial might reveal that numerous other NFC mobile-payment trials elsewhere have not, the Swisscard spokesperson says it would give the organizers their first peek at NFC locally. "We are looking at this here in Switzerland," the spokesperson says. Swisscard is a joint venture of Credit Suisse and United States-based payment card issuer and brand American Express Co., although AmEx seems to have no direct involvement in the trial.
