UK's Everything Everywhere Inks NFC Deal with MasterCard

UK wireless company Everything Everywhere has just signed a muti-year deal with MasterCard for NFC. The Telegraph reports that the deal between Everything Everywhere, which owns T-Mobile UK and Orange UK, and MasterCard will see Orange and T-Mobile customers gain the ability to use their phones to make payments at 100,000 retailers around Britain. The deal will expand to include shopping online and sending money to other people.

"Our vision is of a world beyond cash and the phone is a key tool to driving this step-change," The Telegraph cites Marion King, president of MasterCard UK & Ireland, as saying. "As the sophistication of smartphones continues to evolve, and the mobile payments ecosystem starts to open up, I believe that people will use their mobile phones in lieu of a traditional wallet and start making higher-end purchases, such as white goods or even cars, all through their phones."

This isn't the first time Everything Everywhere has made attempts to start its own NFC service. In May of 2011, Orange teamed up with Barclaycard to offer a new NFC service called QuickTap. Not too long after, in June of 2011, Vodafone, O2, and Everything Everywhere announced plans to develop a mobile payments service that would be compatible across all of their networks regardless of the device a customer is using. The venture was supposed to serve as a one-stop-shop for businesses, advertisers and banks that want to enter the mobile payments arena. However, there's no telling what will happen to those plans now that Everything Everywhere is teaming up with MasterCard.

Everything Everywhere made headlines last week when the UK's telecoms watchdog Ofcom gave the company the go-ahead to re-purpose some of its existing spectrum for 4G LTE coverage. This means Everything Everywhere can launch a 4G LTE network before its competitors, which are stuck waiting for Ofcom's spectrum auction at the end of this year.

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  • idroid
    http://d24w6bsrhbeh9d.cloudfront.net/photo/5201497_700b.jpg
    Reply
  • DXRick
    What's NFC? I don't see the National Football Conference being involved.
    Reply
  • lashabane
    DXRickWhat's NFC? I don't see the National Football Conference being involved.My thoughts exactly. So I just did some Googling.

    NFC = Near Field Communication
    It's when you move your card close to a reader and it charges your card.
    Reply
  • chewy1963
    What's NFC? I don't see the National Football Conference being involved.

    There goes Jane running fast and loose with the obscure acronyms again! :lol:
    Reply
  • g00fysmiley
    my problem thus far with nfc is it isn't relly ready for prime time... or at least my galaxy nexus isn't, sometimes things work great. enter pin tap phone to sensor and it pays but sometimes either due to slow cell signal or somethign it times out and i end up having to use my card anyway, and i am not in a huge city but i am in florida's state capital a decent size city and trying to use it usually right by a major university FSU.
    Reply
  • lordtoki
    try
    Reply
  • sheepsnowadays
    I don't know about this we are already too dependent on technology, I would like to see the power go out for a month just to see if the human race can survive.
    Reply