7-Eleven Working With Nokia, MasterCard on NFC Payment Trial
Written by Evan SchumanA six-month trial with 500 participants—lead by 7-Eleven, Nokia and MasterCard—has been launched in Dallas. The NFC-enabled phones using MasterCard’s PayPass will process 7-Eleven customer transactions, but with less dependence on the card issuer.
The trial will use over-the-air NFC payment provisioning using Giesecke & Devrient’s new chip management approach. “Previous trials have relied on card issuers managing the provision of each handset before handing them over to each trial participant — a method that would be a barrier to the wide scale adoption of NFC payments,” said a recent ABI Research advisory.
The payment process itself—let alone the security and device issues—have made such trials challenging. “This trial tests a trusted third party model, placing G&D’s new offering in the middle ground between issuer and operator,” said ABI Research senior analyst Jonathan Collins. “Success could help provide a blueprint for other (mobile virtual network operators) and major wireless operators to start to test and deploy NFC themselves.”