Credit: William Iven Nokia has formed a joint venture with a smart card manufacturer to secure electronic payments made using a short-range wireless technology called near-field communication (NFC) useful in financial transactions such as credit card purchasing or public transportation ticketing.The new company, formed with Germany’s Giesecke & Devrient, will create and operate a service platform that can be used by banks or mobile phone network operators to securely manage transactions made using cell phones equipped with NFC technology. Users simply wave an NFC-equipped device in front of a reader to make a payment.Giesecke & Devrient will own 57 percent of the joint venture, and Nokia will own the rest.The service they create will be open to all vendors that build NFC-enabled devices. By opening the service up to all players in the NFC market, Nokia and Giesecke & Devrient hope to prevent fragmentation of the NFC market. The companies also hope their platform can help spur the closer integration of mobile phones with NFC. For example, users of the combined devices could use their phones to view transactions that were made on a credit card tied to the NFC on the phone. Two weeks ago, credit card company JCB International and Koninklijke Philips Electronics said they’ll launch a trial service in Amsterdam that will let participants make small payments on credit cards using Nokia phones equipped with NFC. Japan’s NTT DoCoMo has also conducted trials of the technology. NFC was developed by Philips and Sony and is supported by companies including Nokia, Microsoft, MasterCard International, Visa International, NEC, Samsung Electronics and Texas Instruments.Last week, Nokia announced the creation of a joint venture with German industrial conglomerate Siemens. The two companies plan to pool their telecommunications network infrastructure design and manufacturing activities in a new company, Nokia Siemens Networks.-Nancy Gohring, IDG News Service (Dublin Bureau)Related Link: Nokia, Siemens Combine Telecom InfrastructureCheck out our CIO News Alerts and Tech Informer pages for more updated news coverage. Related content brandpost Sponsored by Huawei Beyond gigabit: the need for 10 Gbps in business networks Interview with Liu Jianning, Vice President of Huawei's Data Communication Marketing & Solutions Sales Dept By CIO Online Staff Nov 30, 2023 9 mins Cloud Architecture Networking brandpost Sponsored by SAP Generative AI’s ‘show me the money’ moment We’re past the hype and slick gen AI sales pitches. Business leaders want results. By Julia White Nov 30, 2023 5 mins Artificial Intelligence brandpost Sponsored by Zscaler How customers capture real economic value with zero trust Unleashing economic value: Zscaler's Zero Trust Exchange transforms security architecture while cutting costs. By Zscaler Nov 30, 2023 4 mins Security brandpost Sponsored by SAP A cloud-based solution to rescue millions from energy poverty Aware of the correlation between energy and financial poverty, Savannah Energy is helping to generate clean, competitively priced electricity across Africa by integrating its old systems into one cloud-based platform. By Keith E. Greenberg, SAP Contributor Nov 30, 2023 5 mins Digital Transformation Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe