The Near Field Communication (NFC) Forum is a global standards development and advocacy group dedicated to advancing near field communication technology, educating the public about its benefits, and furthering its implementation around the world. "Welcome is pleased to join other industry leaders in the NFC Forum to further develop the acceptance of NFC technology," said Sébastien Guillaud, Welcome's CEO. "NFC technology has the potential to cross all geographic and physical barriers, and an open consortium is the best way to ensure true interoperability among devices and services. Welcome wishes to make cards more attractive and valuable to merchants and NFC technology can help in providing merchants with innovative and enhanced marketing features. Participating to the NFC Forum is part of Welcome's general objectives to develop new services through technology as announced some months ago with XLS for contactless."

The Forum's corporate members include both product and services firms: companies from the mobile communications, consumer electronics, chip manufacturing, computing, media and entertainment, telecom and payment services sectors. The Forum carries out its work primarily through focused working groups of members covering its various areas of interest, and it promotes the adoption of NFC through open specification development, interoperability testing and compliance facilities, and by publicizing the value of NFCenabled products and services.