Canadian BlackBerry owners will get NFC payments app thanks to Payfirma

Posted by Seth Planck

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Canadian BlackBerry owners will get NFC payments app thanks to Payfirma

NFC payments will hit Canada for BlackBerry owners in the form of the Payfirma NFC Mobile Payment app that will allow Canadians to accept payments right on their phones using a Square type app. The company has just launched its non-NFC version and has committed to launching the near field communications payments version next.

It looks like the NFC capabilities of recent BlackBerry NFC smartphones is going to be put to good use in Canada thanks to Payfirma and its upcoming BlackBerry NFC Mobile Payment app. It was a month ago that Payfirma launched their iPhone app and now they are back with a Mobile Payments app for BlackBerry phones that have recently been released. BlackBerry phones that support NFC include the BlackBerry Bold 9900, BlackBerry Bold 9930, all three new variations of the BlackBerry Curve, and the rumored Bellagio is also reputed to include some NFC goodness. The next iteration of Payfirma’s Mobile Payment app is promised to have NFC Payments built straight in.

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How to enable NFC on the Verizon BlackBerry Bold 9930 with leaked OS update

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How to enable NFC on the Verizon BlackBerry Bold 9930 with leaked OS update

We reported a couple of weeks ago that Verizon was turning off NFC in its version of the BlackBerry Bold 9930. Most mobile network operators are, in fact, selling BlackBerry’s flagship device with NFC turned off at the software level so Verizon’s decision was no big surprise. However, we know our readers that wanted a BlackBerry Bold weren’t keen on the device having the NFC crippled by mobile network operators. We had a trusted source tell us that the near field communications experience wasn’t too great and the software wasn’t yet developed to support as many features as mobile network operators would have liked to have seen for a user’s first NFC experience. To cut a long story short, there are thousands of BlackBerry Bold 9930 NFC-enabled phones now in circulation that don’t have the ability to read tags or other associated capabilities.

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BlackBerry Curve Touch 9380 video confirms NFC rumors

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BlackBerry Curve Touch 9380 video confirms NFC rumors

A video of the BlackBerry Curve Touch 9380 has surfaced on the German website MacBerry.de showing some NFC skills, which confirms it is an NFC capable device. However, just yesterday we reported exclusively that BlackBerry NFC phones are shipping without the kind of support needed to truly utilize near field communications and are giving users a poor NFC experience. We speculate that this is why some carriers are blocking NFC at the software level for the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930. The BlackBerry Curve Touch 9380 can be seen below in a silent video which does indeed confirm that it has an NFC chip on board. We see in the video that the NFC is tuned on and off, but there is no demonstration of the BlackBerry Curve Touch 9380 actually reading an NFC tag. What is really interesting is how small these keyboard-less BlackBerry phones really are. It shows that RIM is heading in a different direction to woo the masses. In the video, we see the phone compared for sizing against the current Curve and Storm which shows that RIM got the memo that thin is in and that less is sometimes more.

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BlackBerry Bold NFCGate: NFC experience very poor [EXCLUSIVE]

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BlackBerry Bold 9900 NFC software is half baked and has exceedingly bad performance

NFC Rumors has learned that the BlackBerry Bold 9900 has issues when it comes to its NFC capabilities. Our source who wishes to remain anonymous and who is close to the matter, told NFC Rumors that AT&T and Vodafone may be blocking NFC on the BlackBerry Bold 9900 for reasons other than or on top of the company’s individual joint venture plans. It was just yesterday that we reported that AT&T in the US and Vodafone in the UK were blocking NFC at the software level and that there was no apparent reason for the move. At the time, the evidence appeared to point at NFC wallet control as the reasoning behind the move but we have since learned the rabbit hole goes a whole lot deeper than that. We are about to completely reverse what we reported just yesterday. We have been told that mobile network operators have server concerns about the NFC performance of the BlackBerry Bold and Curve.

BlackBerry Bold 9900 NFC format and tag problems

Our source speaking about the BlackBerry Bold reported,”This would actually be protecting the consumer (and the NFC industry) from a really disappointing first experience with NFC.” So, what we can take from this is that the issue may be with the Blackberry Bold 9900, and the mobile network operators may, in fact, not want to have have an NFC phone with such poor capabilities defining what an NFC experience is. First impressions last, and it sounds as if the mobile network operators have higher standards than RIM in this area. Our source went on to explain further regarding the issues that could have contributed to the carrier’s decisions. As we remove our proverbial foot out of our mouths, it actually turns out that the carriers may well have been acting in the best interests of consumers after all.

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Blackberry Bold 9930 NFC phone clears the FCC, launching soon in US?

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Blackberry Bold 9930 NFC phone clears the FCC, launching soon in US?

The Blackberry Bold 9930 NFC phone just got the proverbial nod from the FCC to be sold in the good old USofA. So Canada, the UK and perhaps the US soon will have access to RIM’s flagship offering which adds another NFC handset to the market. We could see from the FCC filing that the Blackberry Bold 9930 NFC phone has a dual-band CDMA radio and a quad-band GSM tuner which lets us know we are not dealing with the Blackberry Bold 9900 NFC phone which only supports GSM. The 9930 is a world NFC phone that should work with most networks around the globe and that is what differentiates it from its 9900 brethren.

Which mobile operator networks is the Blackberry Bold 9930 NFC phone heading to?

Due to the nature of the Blackberry Bold 9930 NFC phone being a world phone, we can’t say for sure as it will work with any of the networks stateside. What we do know is that the fact it has passed FCC inspection suggests that RIM is readying to launch at some point in the not so distant future. What we can learn from an FCC filing is minimal because most pertinent information that you and I would be interested in has been stripped to keep secrets, secret.

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