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Far EasTone subscribers participating in the trial will be able to make mobile contactless purchases at any Far EasTone trial partner merchant with the same ease and convenience as with an ordinary contactless payment card. Additionally, a fun new way to shop is to interact with “smart posters”. Taiwan’s hypermarket chain, Far Eastern Geant for instance, will hang posters embedded with NFC tags at their stores. Shoppers walk by, wave their NFC mobile across the poster and walk away with a coupon downloaded to the SIM for use at the checkout or for later purchases. This type of shopping gesture is just one of the exciting new ways to connect the mobile lifestyle with the convenience of contactless. Moreover, subscribers can view and interact with services provisioned using the mobile’s own web browser. In this way, subscribers see the services on the SIM presented as a web page.

Consecutive trial phases, leading to commercial rollout in 2008, will gradually introduce a broader variety of different merchants, partners and services including Taiwan’s largest convenience store chain 7-Eleven, department store Shin Kong Mitsukoshi, vending machines from HeySong and rail transport operated by Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corporation.

The SIM is one of the natural choices available to host this type of service, as it is a portable and secure platform for payment applications. Far EasTone is able to maintain a direct link with subscribers by using it as a hub for advanced subscriber services. For subscribers, the portability prevents service disruption when changing phones.

Interestingly, as more and more services are progressively rolled out, it will be increasingly important to manage multiple services from multiple service providers in a secure and reliable way. Gemalto is uniquely positioned in supporting Far EasTone to leverage on expertise with remote service provisioning and service management in a trusted and secure environment.