OnPoint will leverage Tyfone's professional services to deploy robust mobile banking services initially, with NFC contactless mobile payment capabilities to follow.

Founded in Portland, Oregon in 1932 by 16 school teachers, OnPoint has grown and evolved into a full-service institution serving close to 200,000 members. In support of its mission to provide unsurpassed member access to services, OnPoint has consistently expanded its reach through new branch openings, online banking and bill payment and growth in its ATM network. Earlier this year, OnPoint made a commitment to further increase accessibility through an aggressive mobile banking strategy.

"We set out to find a proven technology partner offering a full suite of mobile banking capabilities, plus we wanted a flexible, modular architecture and experienced professional services to help us implement our strategy," said Jim Armstrong, OnPoint's senior vice president of technology. "Tyfone came through with a comprehensive platform that exceeded our requirements, but their integrated NFC contactless mobile payment capabilities were what really sold us. No other vendor on the market offers both capabilities, and Tyfone's unique secure memory card technology gives us exceptional flexibility to deliver some very exciting new member services down the road."

According to the research firm Juniper Research, by the year 2011 there will be over $587 billion in financial transactions handled by mobile financial services around the world.

While the current industry paradigm for implementing mobile payments relies on wireless operators and handset manufacturers to integrate Near-Field Communications (NFC) chips into new handset models, Tyfone's unique technology overcomes this barrier by integrating the Secure Element (SE), an NFC contactless chip and antenna on standard Secure Digital (SD) memory cards. Using a secure memory card as the SE fosters a better operator - bank cooperation, allowing memory card-enabled phones to become instantly capable of highly secure transactions and contactless payments.

Manufacturers are gearing up for widespread adoption of mobile payments. As of 2009, over 60 percent of phones in the US have memory card slots and close to one billion phones worldwide, thereby Tyfone's solution makes it simple for customers to adopt and provide organizations the opportunity to brand their own cards.

"OnPoint recognizes that offering their members mobile financial solutions is a critical strategy to build on their preeminent position in the marketplace," said Thomas Spitzer, Tyfone's chief executive officer. "Being able to offer everything from secure mobile banking to mobile payments will enable us to partner with them for the long term."