NFC Times Exclusive Insight: TAIPEI, Taiwan – Taiwan’s banking joint venture, Taiwan Mobile Payment Co., as expected, announced the launch of its TSM service Tuesday, with at least 32 Taiwanese banks planning to make their Visa- and MasterCard-branded payment cards available to be downloaded and provisioned by the TSM. 

To use the mobile-payments service, most consumers will need to get a new NFC SIM issued by Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan’s largest mobile operator, which plans to make 100,000 NFC SIMs available in its shops starting this week. More importantly, the telco will also serve as the secure element-issuer TSM for the mobile cards, using its own in-house TSM. Chunghwa Telecom’s TSM will connect to the banking joint venture’s new service-provider TSM, using a platform the JV purchased from France-based Gemalto. 

Chunghwa Telecom will receive a rental fee from the banking joint venture for each card account its TSM handles and its SIMs store, but that fee will not be enough to cover the high cost the telco is paying for its NFC SIM cards, NFC Times has learned.