Contactless chip technology provider Inside Contactless is making its Open NFC commercial-grade NFC protocol stack available in a free and open source edition.

Near field communication—NFC—will begin to replace traditional wallets and purses starting in 2011, according to research by SJB Research.

Mobile payments for virtual goods and services sold via online gaming and social-networking sites will continue to grow in 2010, according to a Boku executive.

For years, mobile near field communication has been touted as one of the most promising mobile technologies for the banking industry. Will NFC take off in 2010?

Near Field Communication software company Zenius Solutions has launched an NFC add-on software product for GSM phones enabling interactive NFC capability on mobile phones currently in market.

Citi Tap and Pay, a contactless credit-card payments platform based on Near Field Communications technology, has rolled out in India.

Juniper Research forecasts that one in every six mobile subscribers worldwide will have a Near-Field-Communication-enabled mobile device by 2014 and that NFC represents a $110 billion opportunity.

Mobile loyalty and rewards service provider Tetherball has teamed with Vivotech to offer its recently introduced RFID-based mobile loyalty programs to existing users of Vivotech’s contactless reader technology.

Inside Contactless is launching a contactless mobile payments platform for banks, brands and transit services in 2010.

While the United States’ mobile commerce ecosystem still lags behind Asia and even Europe, it is catching up quickly as various players prepare for mobile payments to ramp up significantly.