Nokia's NFC Payment Capability To Be Tested Out By New York's MTA

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If you’re in a New York and just happen to have a Nokia Symbian device, there’s a chance you can use your phone to pay for your fare next year. Nokia and the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority have agreed to test the former’s NFC payment capability beginning with the Nokia 603 in 2012.

The recently-released Nokia 603 will be updated with an NFC card emulation software, and will be the first Nokia phone that can be used with an NFC Sim card. More devices will get the same update as the year goes by, though no list of devices was given when the partnership was announced.

While it’s unclear whether Nokia’s Windows Phone devices will be part of the tests, the company announced during the recently-concluded Nokia World 2011 that its Windows Phone devices are getting NFC support next year, as well. In all, Nokia’s looking to extensively test NFC-based mobile payment in 2012.

Says Nokia’s head of NFC, Jeremy Belostock,

Our first job was and is to get NFC out to consumers. The second task is to see where the opportunities are with the different operators out there.