KPN, Vodafone and three leading Dutch banks have signed a co-operation agreement to push forward the launch of NFC-based mobile payments in the Netherlands but T-Mobile has dropped out of the consortium. The German operator was previously part of the telco-bank group dubbed Six Pack which initially signed a letter of intent in September last year to jointly set up a national m-payment system. The original aim of the group was to launch an NFC-based service in 2012. That launch date has now slipped to early 2013. The country’s three leading banks – ABN Amro, ING and Rabobank – are part of the consortium.

T-Mobile says it still believes in the mobile payments market and will determine at a later date how to enter the Dutch m-pay market. The next challenge for the remaining Six Pack members is gaining approval from the European Commission for their plan to establish a centralised body, known as a trusted service manager, to handle payments on NFC-enabled SIM cards. Under this plan operators will compete at the level of end-user services. Other mobile operators in Europe are following a similar approach although the Dutch have added leading banks to the mix alongside mobile operators.