NFC Times Exclusive: More than 25 Taiwanese banks have signed up to potentially launch NFC mobile-payments services using a TSM platform being launched by a joint venture of three domestic processing and interbank groups.

The Taiwan Mobile Payment Co., or TWMP, which formed earlier this year, is the second joint venture to be set up in Taiwan with the intention of launching a TSM platform to enable NFC mobile payments. The other is a joint venture formed by Taiwan’s five mobile carriers and the country’s largest contactless payment company, EasyCard Corp. Both joint ventures plan to launch their TSMs in coming months, joining two other TSMs already ready for service in Taiwan. 

“We have some competition; (but) I think cooperation is more important,” said Chao Yang-ching, chairwoman of both TWMP and also of FISC, the Taiwanese ATM and interbank group that is the lead organization in the TSM joint venture. The other two organizations that formed TWMP are NCCC, Taiwan’s largest credit card processor and acquirer, and payments clearing house TWNCH.