Before the mobile contactless payments race has even kicked off, First Data and Visa have grabbed the wheels of the pace car to move the pack faster. Tired of waiting for phone makers and carriers to embrace the concept, both firms have teamed with tech firms to develop products that allow customers to place NFC chips into mobile phones that accept microSD cards."We think this can be a promising pathway to seeing NFC make its way into the mobile market rather than waiting on the current path of NFC being integrated into the mobile handset," says Dom Morea, division manager for mobile commerce for First Data.The effort is a technological advance over the stickers and other devices that have been piloted by MasterCard, Visa, First Data and others in the past, in that microSD chips embedded inside the handset are considered more secure than devices that are placed on the phones, and can contain more memory and the ability to upgrade and add apps, as well as host multiple payment accounts.

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