Orange expanded a service that enables transactions in locations such as shops and restaurants using NFC-based smartphones throughout France.

The operator had previously offered Orange Cash, which works via a pre-paid virtual Visa card, in a small number of French cities.

“We’ve launched in six pioneer cities, taking time to pilot and use the learnings in order to launch nationwide an application that will lead the development of mobile payments in France. This is why we have now decided to launch throughout the whole country,” said Thierry Millet, SVP Mobile Financial and NFC Services at Orange.

The news came via an announcement by Wirecard, which supplies a number of services to Orange including payment processing, card issuance and a card-linked offers platform. The platform enables Orange to offer retailers real-time loyalty and couponing deals to end-users.

The service’s NFC-SIM cards are provisioned over the air and managed through a TSM integration of Wirecard’s platform with the Orange network. Wirecard is using Trusted Service Manager (TSM) technology from Oberthur Technologies.

More than 30,000 retailers, including IKEA, Picard and Relay, are supporting Orange Cash’s launch.