Canada's Rogers Communications and CIBC Bank Team Up for NFC

With nearly 100% of its MasterCard-branded cards dual interface (both contact EMV and contactless), Canada has the issuing side of contactless largely in hand and many of Canada’s larger retailers support contactless trasnactions as well. Given that, the Canadian market is well positioned for the contactless/NFC world that Google and Isis are trying to create in the U.S.

Smartly, Canada’s banks and credit unions have been working on an NFC mobile payments reference model, the first fruits of which are expressed in the announcement by mobile operator Rogers Communications and number five Canadian bank CIBC of a NFC-based mobile wallet program due out later this year. Initially on Blackberry models with NFC capability (using INSIDE Secure NFC chipsets), Rogers will make more NFC-equipped smartphones available.

In this Reuters piece, however, there’s likely an error. Can you catch it?

Rogers had 9.3 million wireless customers at the end of March, and CIBC is Canada’s fifth-largest bank. Rogers is paying the bank a flat fee per credential added to its SIM cards.

Yes, it is highly unlikely that Rogers is paying the bank. The standard model for NFC credential storage is for the financial institution to pay a fee to whoever holds the keys to the secure storage facility of the NFC chipset. So, it is likely the NFC world will continue to spin on its axis.

Features of the mobile program inlcude fairly strong privacy policies regarding purchase history and the sharing of data. In this day of over-sharing and over-collection of personal data, it is refreshing.

Other features of the wallet and program are:

• Full access to a client’s existing CIBC credit cards on their smartphone at no extra cost – whether Visa or MasterCard – this gives clients the opportunity to earn loyalty points on purchases as they do today.
• Multiple layers of security – Paying with your NFC-enabled smartphone will be as secure as using your credit card today. Clients will receive the same fraud protection they do with their contactless credit card, and secure encryption technology will add to the layers of security already in place on credit card purchases. Clients will also have the option to set additional password protection.
• No “stickers” on your phone – this new payment capability will leverage the secure SIM card inside a mobile device for payments, meaning clients can manage their credit card credentials on a secure platform, and won’t need to worry about stickers attached to their phone.

Click here to read more from Reuters.