Two of Hong Kong’s largest banks, HSBC and Hang Seng, have announced plans to launch NFC mobile payments on SIM cards with Hong Kong’s major mobile operators, but using their own Android apps. Meanwhile, interest in embedded secure elements among banks remains high in the market.
The NFC commercial launches began last year and more are planned in 2014. While HSBC and Hang Seng are believed to have their own TSMs, Hong Kong ATM and interbank group Jetco is in the process of launching its own TSM platform early this year, which could provide smaller banks a TSM platform to use.
Jetco, in its request for proposal for the TSM platform, for which it ultimately chose Gemalto, said it was targeting embedded secure elements and an NFC-enabled iPhone attachment first, not SIM cards. Visa and MasterCard Worldwide, which have deals with Samsung Electronics to enable their applications on the device maker's embedded chips, are believed to be trying to find issuers to use the chips in Hong Kong, as elsewhere. Hong Kong mobile operators might try to convince original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs, not to market the chips.
Hong Kong, while a small market–with only around 3,000 merchant locations and 9,000 point-of-sale terminals enabled to accept Visa payWave and MasterCard PayPass, at present–could shed light on how NFC mobile payments develops in other markets.
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Table on NFC-payments projects in Hong Kong
Among Topics Covered:
• NFC market landscape in Hong Kong
• HSBC to use branded banking app
• 3 Citi Wallet
• Octopus delves into NFC
• Hang Seng’s NFC plans
Among companies and organizations mentioned:
HSBC
Hang Seng Bank
Citibank Hong Kong
Jetco
CSL
PCCW-HKT
China Mobile Hong Kong
3 Hong Kong
SmarTone
Octopus Cards
Visa
MasterCard Worldwide
Sony
Gemalto
Oberthur Technologies
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