France’s Bouygues Telecom has effectively abandoned its program for using mobile phones as contactless payment devices, according to a report in NFC Times, a publication devoted to the relevant technology.

The report states that top executives associated with Bouygues’s near-field communications (NFC) efforts have left or are leaving the company. It says Bouygues, France’s third-largest mobile operator and a pioneer in the NFC field, will participate alongside banks and other telcos in a delayed national push for building out NFC infrastructure – making sure shops support the technology at the point of sale.

However, it says Bouygues will supply no promotion or customer support, and won’t provide “updates to the technology”. The reason for this is apparently financial – Bouygues is undergoing restructuring and is looking to cut costs – but it’s hard not to see this in a wider context.

NFC is still not a sure thing when it…