From the Idea Engineers Blog:

Closed loop contactless cards, such as Octopus, Oyster & Ez-Link, has been gaining mainstream scale and has penetrated by major sectors such as transport, payment, and retailing. Contactless card technology can now expand its domain of applicability by adding contactless functionality to the mobile phone. The Near Field Communication (NFC) mobile service, which leverages the current contactless infrastructures, particularly those based on industry schemes like VISA or MasterCard, has in the last year seen some major announcements and implementations. In countries like Korea and Japan, services benefiting from the convergence of contactless card technology and mobile phones have already been introduced commercially, and these converging services are ubiquitous and successful.