[JCB announces NFC pilot in The Netherlands using a Nokia phone equipped with Philips' NFC ships and a JCB payment app for use at contactless payment terminals.]

JCB, the Asia-based global payment brand together with seven world-class players in payment systems, terminals, NFC and mobile technology, is pleased to announce the launch of a pilot project using an NFC contactless credit payment scheme this autumn in Amsterdam.

This project is being run by a joint cooperation among JCB, CCV Holland B.V., Gemplus, KPN, Nokia, PaySquare, Philips and ViVOtech. With the contactless credit payment scheme, consumers can benefit from the convenience of using their mobile phone to make small payments in Amsterdam.

Selected cardmembers will be supplied with a Nokia mobile phone equipped with Philips' NFC chips, loaded with the JCB payment application. Cardmembers will be able to pay at merchants by just waving their mobile phone at the contactless payment terminal.

In the first stage of the pilot, JCB will be targeting approximately 100 cardmembers located in Amsterdam and merchants in and around the city's World Trade Center. On this scale, the pilot is primarily designed to evaluate technological aspects and operational feasibility including customer ease-of-use. The companies involved in this project are hoping to expand both the cardmember base and merchant locations as the project evolves.

This pilot will mark the very first implementation in Europe of a contactless credit payment scheme using a mobile phone with an NFC chip.

"This deployment marks the beginning of a new payment era for Europe and we are thrilled to be a part of it," said Michael Mullagh, CEO for ViVOtech. "From parking garages to fast food restaurants to movie theatres and even water taxis, NFC mobile phone technology is poised to revolutionize the way consumers and retailers interact with each other. This is just the beginning for this exciting technology."

JCB's partners involved in this pilot are:

-- CCV Holland for deployment of terminals and processing of the transactions,

-- Gemplus to specify and develop the mobile payment application and the associated personalization solution,

-- KPN for the installation of the application and personalization of the mobile phone,

-- Nokia for deployment of the NFC mobile phone,

-- PaySquare, JCB's acquiring partner in the Netherlands, to acquire merchants,

-- Philips for consultation on and delivery of the NFC technology, and

-- ViVOtech to deploy the contactless EMV readers, the ViVOpay 5000 series, to accept payment from NFC mobile phones.

About NFC

NFC is an easy-to-use short range wireless technology that is quickly becoming the technology of choice by operators, handset manufacturers, credit card companies and public transport operators around the world for contactless transactions including secure payment and ticketing due to its strong consumer appeal and ease-of use.

This pilot marks the first implementation of a contactless credit payment scheme in Europe using handsets with an NFC chip embedded. NFC is jointly developed by Philips and Sony, NFC is a combination of contactless identification and interconnection technologies that enables secure short-range communication between electronic devices, such as mobile phones, PDA's, computers and payments terminals via a fast and easy wireless connection. NFC operates in the 13.56 MHz frequency range, over a distance of typically a few centimeters and combines the functions of a contactless reader, a contactless card and peer-to-peer functionality on a single chip. It is an open interface platform that allows fast and automatic set-up of wireless networks, which also works as a virtual connector for existing cellular, Bluetooth and wireless 802.11 devices. NFC is compatible with Sony's FeliCa(TM) card and the broadly established contactless smart card infrastructure based on ISO 14443 A, which is used in Philips' MIFARE(R) technology. www.nfc-forum.org.

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