Turkey's national card switch and clearing centre BKM (Bankalararasi Kart Merkezi - Interbank Card Center) is planning a January launch for a year-long pilot of an independent near-field communication (NFC) infrastructure, with nine banks and two of the country's three mobile operators already on board.
NFC is a short-range wireless connectivity technology that evolved from a combination of existing contactless identification and interconnection technologies. Many pilots and deployments using this contactless payment technology are designed for micropayments, where transaction authorisation is not required. But the Turkish trial will support the EMV protocol, so after swiping the phone to initiate the transaction, users will enter a secret code into the phone's keypad, authorising the payment before holding the phone up to the reader a second time to confirm it.
Pelin Kabalak, assistant general manager – business development, marketing, security and risk, rules and regulations at BKM, says, "BKM will act as the trusted service provider. Our independence is key, as we will support any form of NFC device, and any bank or mobile operator that wants to join the scheme."
Turkey was among the earliest adopters of EMV cards and Chip & Pin compliance in Europe. It has more electronic point-of-sale (POS) devices than any other European country (at 1.6 million), and already has a 5,000 EMV-compliant contactless payment terminals across the country - a number that Kabalak says is likely to rapidly increase over the next few years.
The NFC trial will start "with several thousand consumers participating," she adds.