Citibank, Visa and M1 partner for mobile payments pilot in Singapore

Citibank Singapore established a partnership agreement with Visa and M1, a mobile operator, to implement a three month contactless m-payments trial in Singapore. 

The novelty is to be started in May. It will see up to 300 Citi M1 Platinum Visa cardholders given a Nokia 6212 classic handset. Participants of the experiment will be enabled to make purchases of up to S$100 at over 750 merchants by waving the NFC-enabled mobile phones over a contactless reader at the point of sale. 

Participating merchants include cafes and restaurants like The Coffee Connoisseur and Ichiban Boshi, book store Popular and Harris and retailer Gramophone. Thereby the partners state they are to gather feedback from users throughout the pilot so as to assess trends in user behavior and experiences. 

The companies claim that as soon as the pilot is completed, they will look for opportunities of further development of mobile payment technology in line with the latest Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore's (IDA) plans for NFC services. Thus business director of credit payment products of Citibank Singapore, John Denhof said the company believes that many opportunities for mobile payment services in Singapore exist, as the country has one of the highest mobile phone penetration rates in the world.