Bank owned transaction processor Six Payment Services, one of Europe's largest, has partnered with NFC specialist Nexperts to develop a standard approach to handling NFC loyalty applications.

"The market for electronic loyalty cards and mobile coupons is steadily growing but there is a lack of standards for non-payment transactions," says Thomas Landis, senior innovation manager at Six Payment Services. While MasterCard and Visa set worldwide technical standards for the payment industry, there is no such driver in the loyalty marketplace, Nexperts points out.

"Through this cooperation shoppers will be able to present their membership-, loyalty- and collecting cards as well as promotional coupons by a wave with their NFC smart phones on a contactless terminal from Six in a practical and secure manner," says Nexperts.

The partners are to focus on their home market of Switzerland, where Six is currently rolling out contactless terminals to retailers across the county. Loyalty functionality is due to be added by the end of this year and the partners will then make the technical specification they develop available to other companies in the field "in order to create an interoperable standard".