Oberthur Technologies, one of the world's leaders in secure technologies, launches today the NFC [1] SIM Adaptor, an innovative solution for mobile operators wanting to deploy NFC services - Payment, Transport, Retail and Loyalty - with quick time-to-market and without major investment nor handset availability constraints.
Inserting an NFC adaptor in an existing handset immediately turns it into an NFC-enabled phone.
Oberthur Technologies' return of experience in supporting its customers - mobile operators, financial Institutions, transport operators and retail groups - is that one of the decisive factors that will condition end-user NFC services adoption will be the availability of attractive and cost-effective NFC equipments. Since only a few NFC phones are available at this stage and some users may not be ready to change their current handset, the best solution to accelerate market adoption is to turn phones already in the field into NFC phones.
Made up of an NFC antenna and controller attached to an NFC SIM card, the NFC SIM adaptor is a plug and play solution compatible with many fashionable smartphones and feature phones and designed to be easily inserted in the traditional SIM card slot. Future proof, when the user will buy an NFC phone he will just need to remove the antenna from the SIM and will still be able to use his NFC services.
"The NFC Adaptor supports all NFC features including battery off, tag reading and peer-to-peer. Our NFC SIM Adaptor offer is the answer for mobile operators willing to deploy NFC services in the field now while ensuring end-user adoption", said Arnaud de la Chapelle, Convergence and Solutions General Manager, Card Systems Division at Oberthur Technologies.
[1] Near Field Communications