Payment Services Austria is rolling out a national SIM-based NFC mobile payments app for Maestro cardholders using Android handsets.
Developed in association with Austria Card, Mobile Maestro (called Bankomatkarte Mobil), is being launched nationwide following a successful field trial in Linz.
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. It can be used in the more than 250,000 PayPass outlets worldwide, including 35,000 contactless point-of-sale terminals in Austria.
Konstantinos Lagios, chief commercial officer at Austria Card, says: “Mobile Maestro will set the next era in mobile payments, since it combines increased convenience with high security and will be made available to all Austrian cardholders."
Austria Card is charged with running the datacentre for mobile provisioning and taking care of security, including key management, PCI DSS compliant network infrastructure, and monitoring of the Trusted/Business Service management (BSM) system.