Canadian Ad Insider

Back in May, Rogers and CIBC held a press conference, at the time there was a lot of speculation as to what was going to be announced, we thought they’d be offering a bank since that was also a rumour that had been floating around quite a bit.  As it turned out Rogers and CIBC announced a new partnership that would offer mobile payments to Canadians, but the catch is that it was coming “soon.”  Media in the room hammered the executives for more details as to when the new service would launch and of course on which smartphones through NFC technology.  As we have now seen from the Apple iPhone 5, NFC is not the direction they are going, instead Apple has opted for its own technology solution called “Passport.”

This morning a press release came out announcing a new partnership between Rogers and Gemalto, a company that develops mobile security solutions.  Rogers will begin pilot testing NFC-enabled devices that will contain high-end SIM-UICC solutions, to store and secure consumers credentials and card data required to make payments with NFC-enabled mobile devices.

Surprisingly, there has been no news from Bell, WIND Mobile, TELUS, Mobilicity or Public Mobile as to their plans for a mobile payment solution.  Love them or not, Rogers has been historically been a leader in bring new mobile technology to Canadian consumers.
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