Unique to Ingenico, these approvals have been granted without restrictions. Our design enables portability of the contactless payment expansion module to other Ingenico payment terminals and for use outside the United States for transaction acceptance requiring EMV.

Throughout the world, contactless payment is being implemented by many different types of merchants where transaction speed and fast customer service are essential. In the US, Ingenico is involved in many contactless payment deployments with leading retailers, having so far installed several thousands of retail terminals with the contactless payment expansion module.

"Visa and MasterCard's approvals are a testament to our dedication to improve our client's businesses by leveraging state of the art technology," stated Jerôme Janin, Vice President of Marketing and Engineering for Ingenico Group. "Our payment module has successfully passed Visa and MasterCard's tests and is now one of only a few devices on the market to be fully compliant with all three of the main contactless payment standards, as well as the emerging contactless EMV standard. The integrated contactless payment expansion module helps increase transaction convenience for the merchant and checkout speed for the cardholder, while ensuring maximum payment security for all."

This expansion module will be available for use with the i6700 colour touch screen terminal and the i6500 customer-activated payment terminal later this year.

Separately, Ingenico is taking part in a world premier whereby payments can be made using NFC cell phones on Ingenico terminals. Started in Caen on October 14 for 6 months, this experiment was initiated by France Télécom and Philips in partnership with, LASER, Samsung, Vinci Park and Caen City Hall.

200 Caen residents who are Orange clients and Cofinoga payment card holders are now offered a payment system using their cell phone in some Caen city center stores on the Cofinoga network (Galeries Lafayette, Monoprix and partner stores). The solution is based on cell phones containing an NFC chip and an Ingenico 5100 terminal hooked up to a contactless reader. Clients simply place the back of their cell phone in front of the terminal which then carries out the secure transaction acceptance process. The benefits for the merchant and the customer are instant: shorter checkout times as the payment is carried out quickly and easily. Transaction security is guaranteed by Ingenico's expertise in this field.

Ingenico has been working on developing contactless solutions for several years making payments quick and easy by simply placing the card in front of a contactless reader, offering clients a completely secure transaction. Some of these solutions have already been rolled out in large US store chains. In Caen, Ingenico has once again highlighted its key role and technological forerunner status in contactless payment systems as this is the first time anywhere in the world that a contactless payment has been carried out as part of a real-life experiment using an NFC-standard cell phone, and not a card.

In addition to its payment function, the cell phone using NFC technology can also be used to read data on tags located at different points in the city (bus timetables, municipal information, film trailers).