This is a big news for Indonesia, although indirectly. Blackberry recently announces their partnership with MasterCard, making Blackberry 9900 and 9360 as the first NFC-enabled devices certified to work with MasterCard PayPass. France Telecom and Orange are two of the first carrier to support this partnership between RIM – Mastercard.
This means that any bank that supports MasterCard PayPass technology can now deploy PayPass accounts directly to the SIM card on smart phones, enabling owners to make contactless mobile purchases wherever PayPass is accepted.
Andrew Bocking, RIM’s VP for Handheld Software Product Management said “NFC technology makes smartphones smarter and Mastercard’s certification is a significant boost in changing the way we user mobile devices to pay. We are proactively working together with operator partners, banks, retailers and other industry players and we’re very happy to push the limit on how NFC can deliver new mobile experience for Blackberry users around the globe”.
As one of RIM’s biggest market in the world, this could mean that contactless and cashless payment is on its way to reach to Indonesian market. And if RIM can pull this of properly in Indonesia, this could open so many possibilities in support of Indonesia’s digital ecosystem.
