Telefonica Digital and Research In Motion
have launched their pilot program of the Telefonica wallet for BlackBerry
smartphones.

Telefonica, in association with banks and
retailers, will launch the Telefonica Wallet for BlackBerry to 350 employees at
its headquarters in Spain.

People can pay by tapping their BlackBerry
smartphones against a reader. Employees that are part of the NFC pilot project
will also be able use their BlackBerry smartphone (in lieu of a security card)
to gain access to the Telefonica headquarters office.

“We have chosen the BlackBerry
solution for this pilot because of the security that the platform brings. RIM’s
participation has been important for this pilot project, and we are now
planning to extend the project to more and more Telefonica employees around the
world,” said Julio Linares, COO, Telefonica.

The Telefonica Wallet for BlackBerry
currently supports NFC-enabled smartphones including BlackBerry Bold 9900,
BlackBerry Curve 9360 and BlackBerry Curve 9380, all of which run the new
BlackBerry 7 operating system.

“RIM is committed to supporting the
advancement of NFC and its many applications in the market. We have a strong
partnership with Telefonica Group and we are very proud to participate in this
important pilot, which allows people to use their BlackBerry smartphone in
place of separate physical cards for mobile payments and building access,”
said Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO at RIM.

The Telefonica Wallet for BlackBerry makes
use of SIM-based NFC capabilities, offering a simple interface for managing
cards. The application replicates a physical wallet, showing the different
cards available to the user. Once the user has selected a card, they are
offered a range of options including making transactions, getting account
balances and receiving confirmations from the bank.

Additional partners participating in the pilot include banking and financial
institutions, retail and food stores, gas stations and others.

By Telecomlead.com Team
[email protected]