RIM and Telefonica team up on NFC mobile payments pilot

Research In Motion has staked its claim as a leader in the mobile payment and Near Field Communications space with the announcement of a new pilot project which will see Telefonica employees at the network operator's Madrid headquarters able to pay for goods in local retailers with their BlackBerrys.

The Telefonica Wallet for BlackBerry project will allow users of the NFC enabled BlackBerry Bold 9900, BlackBerry Curve 9360 and BlackBerry Curve 9380 handsets to pay by touching their device against a reader in participating stores.

The SIM-based NFC technology stores funds and transcation details electronically on the phone's chip while at the front end an application on the device allows user to choose which cards they want to use, as well as get account balances.

The pilot is set to be rolled out to Telefonica employees worldwide and, if successful, could be a precursor to commercial services rolling out from next year, according to the network giant.

The news comes as Barclaycard and Visa Europe announced that the O2 arena in London will be rolling out more than 250 contactless card readers across the venue to allow users with contactless cards or NFC enabled phones to pay more quickly and easily.

Barclaycard and Orange in May announced their SIM-based Quick Tap payment service for NFC enabled mobile phones, starting with the Samsung Tocco Lite.