Nov 16 2007 : Visa and MasterCard have announced separate mobile payments initiatives in Asia, Brazil and Canada. MasterCard has partnered with Japanese telco Softbank Mobile, credit card issuer Orient, French smart card vendor Gemalto, and Samsung and Hitachi to launch a Near Field Communications (NFC) m-payments system in Japan. The system, which will be field-tested in Q2 2008, will enable Japanese consumers to make MasterCard PayPass contactless payments using NFC-enabled cellphones. PayPass technology will be embedded on a NFC-capable SIM card developed by Gemalto, which can be inserted into a SoftBank Mobile phone made by Samsung, MasterCard says. Separately, BMO Bank of Montreal says it is the first Canadian MasterCard issuer to add PayPass to its credit cards. BMO is using contactless chips from Germany’s Giesecke & Devrient. Visa is working with Companhia Brasileira de Meios de Pagamento, Brazil’s sole Visa debit and credit card acquirer, also known as VisaNet do Brasil. The two companies will launch a trial in 2008 to examine consumer preferences for remote m-payments – transactions that take place via wireless networks and enable consumers to make payments on cellphones while on the move. In Canada and Malaysia, Visa will test cellphone-based Visa payWave purchases at merchants which are equipped with contactless readers. In Ontario, Visa will launch an employee and consumer trial in 2008 with Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) of cellphones containing embedded Visa payWave and NFC technology. In Malaysia, Visa launched a trial in October 2007 with Maybank, local wireless telco Maxis, Nokia and 100 employees to test contactless m-payments. The trial is using Visa’s mobile technology platform to download Visa payWave over-the-air to participants’ cellphones.