LIVE FROM THE GSMA’S NFC & MOBILE MONEY SUMMIT, NEW YORK: Turkcell responded to China Mobile’s complaint earlier in the week about a lack of mid- and low-priced NFC handsets with its own solution: Make your own devices.

Aygun Aydin (pictured), who leads the technical operations for Turkcell’s mobile financial services, said the operator offers a number of its own-brand NFC handsets “all under $200”.

Turkcell is unusual among mobile operators in taking the own-build approach to NFC-based handsets.

Building your own smartphones enables an operator to specify exactly what they want to include in the device, and how much they want to charge end-users. A number of operators have taken this approach in the past, but rarely for NFC.

In addition, Turkcell will “very soon” launch a new mobile payment service that will enable consumers to purchase goods by inputting their mobile number at the point-of-sale, said Aydin.

The advantage of such a service is that it is useable by every mobile phone, so growing the available audience for Turkcell’s Cuzdan mobile wallet. The operator has already launched an NFC-based mobile payment service.