A collection of heavyweight banks, card firms and telcos have joined forces in Austria to build an open, nation-wide standard for NFC-based mobile wallets.
Austria Card, Card Complete, Drei, Erste Bank, First Data, MasterCard, Nexperts, PayLife Bank, T-Mobile and Visa have all signed up to the effort, which is preparing a pilot for the autumn ahead of a full roll-out next year.
Using an NFC SIM provided by the telcos, the system will let customers make payments - and use loyalty cards and coupons - at contactless Visa and MasterCard terminals with a tap of their handsets.
The partners are stressing their commitment to open co-operation as they seek to bring their system to the world of commerce, transport, ticketing, security, and banking.