Being an early adopter for new technologies, I was invited a few months ago to participate in a pilot operated by ING Romania using this mobile phone in conjunction with a couple other services.
Basically, the phone has a NFC chip built-in, which allows it to communicate with NFC communication devices connected to POS in selected locations, just like the VISA/MasterCard card processors. But the actual transaction is confirmed online; this is why a mobile Internet subscription is required in addition to the regular GSM service. Payment is not possible in areas without 3G coverage, as the communication doesn't work properly on basic GSM connection. In addition, the phone has an embedded cryptography chip to keep communication highly secure. So this phone is NOT the same with the RFID/other wireless/contactless payment cards out there.
ING has also created an electronic payment service accessible through an application on the phone, communicating with the bank's systems. The service behaves like a prepaid card, which you can recharge from your savings account. It was designed for small purchases (news stand, pharmacy, corner shop, movie theatre), so the largest payment allowed was around $25 and the maximum balance on the card around $100.
The cool stuff was about using NFC for other things - for example, a movie poster outside the cinema could include a NFC chip; touch it with the phone and get an instant discount before going to the ticket booth.
I chose not to join the pilot, but I did attend the presentation and had a chance to fiddle with the system. If you've got questions, shoot.
Whoops, my bad; the phone used in the ING pilot was the Nokia 6212 Classic. Not that I see much of a difference in 6216...
And before you ask, I didn't join the pilot because: a) mobile Internet is still a rip-off in this corner of the world; b) the phone remained the property of the bank, carrying a hefty penalty for losing it; c) the pilot had a mandatory minimum number of monthly transactions, while the number of NFC-enabled locations was very low; d) the pilot had a limited duration (actually, I believe it should be ending one of these days), and the NFC payment service will be discontinued, making the NFC feature useless for an indefinite amount of time; d) the big one - I had to either stop using my current personal phone, which meant ditching some features I was depending on because the 6212 is otherwise pretty plain and dumb, or to get used to the idea of carrying around one more mobile phone with a second mobile service subscription and solely for the NFC payments service. That's a bit too much to ask for.
While its tablet world topping pixel density, Tegra 2 silicon, and fresh to death OS certainly sound awesome, we had to get our grubby mitts on one to see if it's as good as its spec sheet would have us believe.
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Being an early adopter for new technologies, I was invited a few months ago to participate in a pilot operated by ING Romania using this mobile phone in conjunction with a couple other services.
Basically, the phone has a NFC chip built-in, which allows it to communicate with NFC communication devices connected to POS in selected locations, just like the VISA/MasterCard card processors. But the actual transaction is confirmed online; this is why a mobile Internet subscription is required in addition to the regular GSM service. Payment is not possible in areas without 3G coverage, as the communication doesn't work properly on basic GSM connection. In addition, the phone has an embedded cryptography chip to keep communication highly secure. So this phone is NOT the same with the RFID/other wireless/contactless payment cards out there.
ING has also created an electronic payment service accessible through an application on the phone, communicating with the bank's systems. The service behaves like a prepaid card, which you can recharge from your savings account. It was designed for small purchases (news stand, pharmacy, corner shop, movie theatre), so the largest payment allowed was around $25 and the maximum balance on the card around $100.
The cool stuff was about using NFC for other things - for example, a movie poster outside the cinema could include a NFC chip; touch it with the phone and get an instant discount before going to the ticket booth.
I chose not to join the pilot, but I did attend the presentation and had a chance to fiddle with the system. If you've got questions, shoot.
Whoops, my bad; the phone used in the ING pilot was the Nokia 6212 Classic. Not that I see much of a difference in 6216...
And before you ask, I didn't join the pilot because:
a) mobile Internet is still a rip-off in this corner of the world;
b) the phone remained the property of the bank, carrying a hefty penalty for losing it;
c) the pilot had a mandatory minimum number of monthly transactions, while the number of NFC-enabled locations was very low;
d) the pilot had a limited duration (actually, I believe it should be ending one of these days), and the NFC payment service will be discontinued, making the NFC feature useless for an indefinite amount of time;
d) the big one - I had to either stop using my current personal phone, which meant ditching some features I was depending on because the 6212 is otherwise pretty plain and dumb, or to get used to the idea of carrying around one more mobile phone with a second mobile service subscription and solely for the NFC payments service. That's a bit too much to ask for.