News travels fast. Today several Dutch media announced the start of a large pilot for mobile payments. The pilot will start in a few weeks in Rotterdam and is an initiative of Payter. Payter is an innovative new company with the intention to distribute a solution for mobile payments in the Netherlands. Equens will facilitate Payter during the pilot by offering various authorisation services making use of the existing Prepaid infrastructure.
The pilot in Rotterdam begins at the end of August and ends in December. It will start with approximately 29 retailers and 650 participants. They will receive a mobile phone with Near Field Communication (NFC chip) and GPRS. The maximum balance of the purse is 150 euro. Participating retailers need a special POS terminal that can communicate with the NFC chip in the consumer's mobile phone. Mobile payments will offer convenience for consumers. Important benefits for retailers are the reduction of cash and easy and fast payments.
Erwin Gerritsen of Equens explains why Equens is involved: "Equens is the first truly pan-European full-service payment processor. Besides the processing of payment and card transactions it is very important for us as innovative payment processor in Europe to be involved in new developments such as mobile payments. Therefore we fully subscribe initiatives like this pilot. Our goals for this pilot are to understand the challenges, opportunities and commercial feasibility for a mobile payment solution".
For further information on Payter and the upcoming pilot please look at www.payter.nl