MWS: An extensible mobile wallet provided to operators on an SaaS basis

Alcatel-Lucent has introduced its Mobile Wallet Service (MWS), a software-as-a-service platform that enables mobile network operators to offer their customers a wide range of mobile payments services including proximity payments, mobile ticketing, international remittances, P2P funds transfer and both ecommerce and mcommerce services.

"A portfolio of access devices for proximity payment" is supported and, via the company's partnership with Clear2Pay, the Mobile Wallet Service also provides a full end-to-end transaction service including stored value account management, gateways to banks and payment networks plus direct links to the operator’s billing system. This enables operators who use the service to link consumers' mobile wallets to a full range of Visa and MasterCard credit and debit cards and to process transactions through a country's existing payments processing system.

A range of mobile loyalty and couponing services are also available and operators are able to offer consumers incentives in the form of loyalty points each time they use their mobile wallet to make a payment or a transfer.

MWS has been developed by Alcatel-Lucent's Touchatag venture, which has extensive experience with near field communication and with contactless stickers, and is delivered to operators as a turnkey solution that can also be customized to reflect the needs of specific markets. For instance, says the company, "consumers in developed countries want the convenience of paying for goods and services from their mobile phones. In growth economies, MWS can be adapted to deliver money management services via a mobile device."

A key advantage of the Mobile Wallet Service is that operators do not need to make a major upfront investment, Anthony Belpaire, Touchatag's general manager, told NFC World. Instead, service fees are paid to Alcatel-Lucent based on the number of active mobile wallet users the operator has recruited and on the volume of transactions made.

An Application Enablement API, meanwhile, enables third parties to develop new applications for the Mobile Wallet Service. Providers of existing card-based services, such as loyalty card programmes, can also use the API to integrate a mobile version of their offering into the Mobile Wallet Service.

"Consumer tastes and technology can change in the blink of an eye," explains Belpaire. "Our approach allows operators to bring timely and relevant mobile wallet services to consumers, to scale with consumer demand and to dynamically add new applications."

This article was first published at www.NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com.

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PARTNERS: Touchatag has teamed up with Clear2Pay to create a contactless payments system for MNOs

A new collaboration between Touchatag, the near field communication tag applications specialist owned by Alcatel-Lucent, and payments systems specialist Clear2Pay enables mobile operators to launch mobile wallet services based on contactless stickers. The new platform includes payment, ticketing and marketing services and is compatible with NFC phones as well as stickers.

The new platform's payment and stored value account solution includes the ability to collect and redeem loyalty points, issue gift cards, deliver store receipts electronically and provide interactive advertising and promotions. Mobile operators will be provided with identity management and contactless application management services via Touchatag's Application Correlation Server (ACS) and with stored value account (SVA) management services via a Clear2Pay SVA server managed by Touchatag.

"Users gain the benefit of easy payments and checking transactions and balances in real time on their mobile phone," says Alcatel-Lucent. "In addition, users can manage many relationships with merchants, banks, and day-to-day applications without adding single use cards to their physical wallet."

"The capabilities of the mobile phone, RFID, SMS, Web 2.0 services, and location information, combined with payment, allow merchants to enhance their customer relationships with virtual loyalty cards, coupons, tickets and membership IDs delivered directly to a user's mobile phone," Alcatel-Lucent adds.

"Initially, the relationship will focus on delivering proximity/contactless payment using RFID stickers and tags and evolve to NFC-enabled mobile phones," the company continues. "In the future, the same platform will deliver remittance payments, person-to-person payment services and SMS ticketing."

"People want to user their phones to pay for everyday items," says Anthony Belpaire, Touchatag's general manager. "In linking Clear2Pay's global payment gateway with Touchatag's identification management services, we have an end-to-end solution for mobile operators."

"In these challenging times, the market is looking for profitable and secure mobile solutions which have true business potential," adds Michel Akkermans, chairman and CEO of Clear2Pay. "We are confident that with this alliance we will be able to offer just that.”

This article was first published at www.NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com.

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• Alcatel-Lucent introduces turnkey pay-as-you-go mobile wallet platform for operators
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LET'S PLAY TAG: Design a game for Vienna and win

Touchatag and Austrian mobile operator Mobilkom A1 have launched a developer challenge aimed at finding a winning NFC-based city game. €5,000 in prize money is on offer for the best game concepts and the overall winner's game will also get to be made and played.

But those interested in taking part in the Vienna Jungle Scrum developer challenge must abide by the following rules:

1. The game must incorporate at least five separate physical locations in Vienna
2. Preferential consideration will be given to games that emphasize the following attributes:
   • Education about Viennese history or culture
   • Creative use of the city’s features and attractions in gameplay
   • Clarity of gameplay and rules
   • Inter-team cooperation
   • Fun
3. The game must require the use of NFC tags as a key part of the game interaction
4. All NFC tags must use the Touchatag online service in some way
5. The total time required to complete the game must be less than 90 minutes (including travel time between sites)
6. The game must require no more than €5 total (per player or team member) to complete, including any transportation costs (such as taxis) incurred during the game
7. The game must not require or encourage contestants to perform acts that are illegal, unethical, outside the norms of social acceptability, or require undue personal endangerment (In other words, use good judgement)

If you'd like to take part, you will need to get to work straight away as the closing date for entries is 9 September. You can submit your entry here.

This article was first published at www.NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com.

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OPEN APPROACH: PingPing and Touchatag will develop an open system

Belgacom, operator of the NFC sticker-based PingPing mobile payments service, and Alcatel-Lucent, developer of Touchatag (previously known as Tikitag), have formed a partnership to create an open business model for PingPing, designed to enable Belgian consumers to use contactless cards, stickers or NFC phones in as wide a variety of applications as possible.

As a first stage, PingPing's sticker-based payment system, due to launch during the third quarter of 2009, is being combined with Touchatag's contactless services, which include interactive advertising, loyalty programs and coupon services.

An accreditation programme for other technology suppliers, operators and application developers will then be set up, allowing third-party suppliers to develop new applications and services based on the companies' technology.

"PingPing now wants to open up this technology to the creative power of many developers and we have adopted a very open approach to the market," says Stijn Vander Plaetse, vice president of innovation at Belgacom. "We want to combine PingPing payment services with many new and exciting value-added services on one single contactless card or mobile phone, making it easier for the consumer and the companies they want to do business with."

Although the formal agreement between the two companies is new, they have been working together on the development of a combined offering for some time. In June 2008, a trial went live at an Alcatel-Lucent canteen in Belgium which saw the traditional paper meal vouchers issued by Accor Services being replaced with a combined PingPing/Touchatag solution.

The new service, Accor reports, has provided both savings in distribution costs and a user-friendly experience for customers and the company now plans to extend the trial to include a range of other services such as interactive advertising applications, interactive displays, loyalty programs and coupons.

This article was first published at www.NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com.

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• Alcatel-Lucent introduces turnkey pay-as-you-go mobile wallet platform for operators
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• New platform lets mobile operators offer payments, ticketing, loyalty services via stickers or NFC phones
• Chinese banks and mobile operators to create single, open platform for NFC and mobile payments services
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Additions to the NFCW Jobs Board this week include:

• Visa Europe, London: A Product Manager — Mobile — NFC and Contactless with significant experience in marketing, innovation and new product developments and prior experience of NFC and contactless payments. You'll take ownership of ensuring pilot and project delivery, managing pilot deliverables and collaborating with other team members and divisions as necessary.
• Alcatel-Lucent, USA/Belgium. The Bell Labs team, based in Antwerp in Belgium, has two vacancies. The first is for an Application Researcher with a Masters degree in software/telecom engineering for the ambient media department, working on ambient intelligence, smart objects, the internet of things, locative media and smart cities. The second is for a Project Lena Partner Manager — Business Development, based in the US. The Lena Venture is working on the launch of an RFID B2C offering that will enable consumers to trigger online actions via simply touching RFID labeled things with NFC mobile phones or PC RFID readers.

Full details of all the latest vacancies, including openings at Qualcomm, Microsoft and Inside Contactless, plus information on how to list your vacancy, can be found on the NFCW Jobs Board.

This article was first published at www.NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com.

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STICKY TIKIS: The starter kit comes with a reader and ten tags for a shade less than 40 notes

Top UK gadget retailer Firebox has added a Tikitag starter kit to its product line, marking the first time an NFC solution of this type has become available for sale on a mainstream consumer website.

Tikitags were developed by Alcatel-Lucent Ventures, a business incubator within Bell Labs, and caused a sensation when they were first demonstrated at DemoFall in September. The NFC-compatible RFID stickers are designed to act as a low cost, low impact entry point to the 'internet of things'.

Consumers simply tag items around them and then associate each tag's ID number with a function, operation or application. When the tags are read, using either the reader supplied with the starter kit or an NFC compatible phone, the application associated with the tag can be looked up in a database held in the cloud and automatically launched. Applications range from the very simple to the very complex and can draw on both the location of the reader and the ID number of the tag.

What kind of thing can Tikitags be used for? Well, for almost anything where it would be useful to create a link between an object and the internet, web or mobile. "Imagine if your business card could swipe open your company website or your teddy bear could open a playlist of nursery rhymes," says Firebox. "Or how about if that tacky souvenir donkey from Majorca magically opened up your holiday snaps."

The Tikitag website is full of ideas and already has a wide range of applications available for download, designed using the Tikitag API. Commercial applications, as well as consumer markets, are a major target market as well and Alcatel-Lucent's introductory video probably tells the story best.

I'M A TIKITAG: Alcatel-Lucent has produced a video to show how Tikitags work. Click to play.

Tikitags have been on sale direct from Tikitag.com since October 1st and featured last week in a Wired article Geeky Toys That Will Make You a Christmas Hero. Now, with Firebox (and also now with ThinkGeek in the US) they are being promoted by an established retailer able to fulfill orders internationally and could be the surprise hit of the Christmas season amongst the tech in-crowd. They're certainly top of our Christmas wish list here at NFCW!

This article was first published at www.NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com.

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• ACS launches token-sized USB plug and play NFC contactless reader
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The city of Oulu is home to 130,000 Finns, including some 5,000 Nokia employees

"For a city born out of trading in tar, sailing ships and salmon, Oulu in northern Finland is an unlikely hotbed of technology innovation," says Computing magazine's Angelica Mari. "But unlike California’s Silicon Valley, Oulu leads the way in applying groundbreaking technology, rather than its development."

Here's the background to Oulu's NFC experiments:

City officials launched a six-year plan in 2007 focused on exploiting its untapped IT potential, aiming to be a global leader. Oulu Innovation, the city’s innovation agency, is in charge of managing and delivering the strategy, which includes the establishment of applied research units, as well as business development programmes and innovation trials to create a technologically advanced society."

“We are in a remote location, cannot compete in manufacturing and our natural resources are scarce, so high technology provides us with unlimited opportunities,” says Oulu Innovation’s chief executive, Jukka Klemettilä.

An innovation programme aims to assess the public needs for new products and service developments and includes SmartTouch, a project involving 20 local companies as well as Nokia, Gemalto, Alcatel-Lucent and Philips, that focuses on the large-scale use of near field communication  technology to improve community services.

Since 2004 at least 10 trials have taken place in application areas such as healthcare, car parking, the provision of a meal service for elderly and disabled citizens, theatre and bus ticketing services, Outi Rouru-Kuivala, the SmartTouch project manager, told Computing.

The latest trial is taking place at primary and secondary schools in the city and aims to increase security and co-operation between home and school.

The full article, with details of all the field trials conducted in Oulu to date, can be seen on Computing's website.

This article was first published at www.NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com.

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