Telenor Pakistan is reportedly testing a new service that — when rolled out for general public — will enable Easypaisa mobile account holders to make payments wirelessly through NFC compatible phones.
Our sources tell that service is in alpha phase and selected company employees have been authorized to use the service. Few outlets around Telenor’s F-11 Office in Islamabad are also given NFC enabled merchant accounts where they charge Telenor employees through NFC.
For those who aren’t familiar, NFC or Near Field Communication enables smartphones or other NFC enabled devices are to be brought together — just like tapping them with each other — to trigger a data transfer which can involve financial transactions or any kind of transaction for that matter.
Telenor’s NFC payments will involve similar kind of methodology. Buyer (with NFC enabled phone) will have to tap his/her phone with merchant’s smartphone (or NFC enabled payment booths) to pay for goods.
Upon tapping the phone, a message will pop up on buyers’ phone asking for confirmation about the amount they are about to pay to the merchant. Once the confirmation is made, the specified amount from buyers’ easypaisa account will be transferred to merchant.
As mentioned above, the service is currently available with Telenor employees only and we don’t have any word on when this NFC payment solution from Telenor will be made available to general public.
