Telefonica announces NFC trial in Sitges, Spain

By Sarah Clark | NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com | 11 February 2010, 12:01

Telefonica has announced this morning that it is to run an NFC trial in the Spanish resort of Sitges, in conjunction with Visa and La Caixa bank (see a photo from the press conference here). The phones will be supplied by Samsung, which is expected to officially launch its new NFC handset at the Mobile World Congress next week.

The trial will begin in May, according to Spanish journalist Albert Cuesta, and will enable 1,500 consumers to use their phones to make purchases at 500 shops in Sitges.

Update: The trial will last for six months and there are plans to extend the system to also include the city of Barcelona, 40 km from Sitges. "We'll be adding more cities," says Kim Faura, head of Telefonica for the Catalonia region.