NFC Times Exclusive – Hungary’s largest telco, which last week launched NFC payments commercially, believes it can avoid problems and threats encountered by other telcos launching NFC, a spokesperson from the Hungarian Mobile Wallet Association told NFC Times.

Among those threats are host-card emulation and Apple Pay, both of which are attracting interest from banks in Europe and beyond, following the launch of HCE by Google on new Android devices a year ago and the roll out of Apple Pay in the U.S. last month.

Deutsche Telekom-owned Magyar Telekom, a leading member of the mobile wallet association launched NFC with the country’s largest bank, OTP, another member of the association, which also includes other Hungarian telcos and large loyalty scheme SuperShop. The bank issues a MasterCard PayPass debit application loaded onto Magyar Telekom SIM cards. Vodafone Hungary, another member of the association, hopes to launch NFC in the first quarter of 2015.