Blackberry Bold 9900 and Blackberry Curve 9360 are said to be the first SIM- Based NFC smart phones to be certified by MasterCard Worldwide as PayPass-approved devices. This is according to Research in Motion’s announcement yesterday. SIM-based NFC will mean the device doesnt have to be NFC enabled in the first place, hence a plus for existing devices. The service will be offered by France Telecom-Orange, currently in UK and France with plans to go wider.
Blackberry was certified after meeting functionality, interoperability and security requirements of Mastercard, allowing any MasterCard Paypass-issuing bank globally to deploy paypass-enabled accounts to the sim cards.
With this certification, Carriers globally will now have access to the first NFC smartphones certified as MasterCard PayPass™ approved devices
