Dutch banks and operators nix NFC joint venture
20 July, 2012
category: NFC
TRAVIK, aka Sixpack, the would-be joint venture between Dutch telecos KPN and Vodafone Netherlands, and banks ING, Rabobank and ABN Amro, has announced that it will officially disband.
According to Bell ID, the joint venture called it off due to the growing availability of trusted service manager (TSM) products and services, which has rendered its original plan of establishing one national TSM for NFC services obsolete.
Another contributing factor may have been the ongoing European Commission investigation that saw the JV’s launch pushed back to 2013. During that time, original Sixpack partner T-Mobile dropped out due to the country’s lack of NFC infrastructure and a perceived low return on its investment in the project.
Nonetheless, the remaining five partners say they will continue to “cooperate for the introduction of mobile-proximity payments” to the Dutch market, according to a statement cited by NFCTimes.
“The parties have come to the conclusion that this original plan to build a JV is too complex and requires too much time,” the partners added. “Lately, developments in the market have removed the necessity to establish such a new company.”
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