Absa Extends NFC Payments Trial In South Africa

By PYMNTS | September 2, 2013

Absa, the banking group based in South Africa, announced the extension of its NFC mobile payments pilot, reported NFC World. The pilot began in December 2011 and 500 Absa employees were provided with Blackberry handsets and microSD cards that needed external signal boost stickers to operate. The mobile payments trial will no longer need the microsSD stickers, and will now offer Samsung Galaxy S4 handsets to those involved with the scheme.

“The booster sticker that needed self-insertion was often difficult and problematic for consumers,” Absa head of digital banking and payments Adrian Vermooten told NFC World. “For this reason, and based on Absa’s strategy to make customers’ lives easier, we are proud to announce that these trials on handsets are underway for a microSD card fitted with NFC capabilities that requires no booster sticker to be inserted.”