Security technology company Oberthur Technologies announced it has joined a partnership with Visa Europe and Icelandic acquirer Valitor to launch an NFC contactless payment network in Iceland.

"At Oberthur Technologies, we are strongly promoting NFC technologies which incorporate both straightforward usage and high security," said Eric Duforest, Europe Managing Director, Oberthur Technologies, in the announcement.

A pilot program is set to begin in January 2012 with a wider rollout for later in the year and a full commercial deployment by 2013, the company said.

According to the announcement, the partners chose Iceland to test the project due to the country's population size and concentration around Reykjavik.

“Iceland is one of our most successful markets. Both the size of the market and high level of credit card usage makes Iceland an ideal test environment to launch tomorrow’s new method of payment," said Fredrik Westerman, GM of Nordics and Baltics for Visa Europe.

DuForest added that Icelanders are known as early adopters.

"We are aware that the Icelandic population are pioneers in adopting new technologies and new methods of payment," DuForest said.

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