Tyfone’s iPhone (News - Alert) sleeve, powered by smartphone accessories manufacturer Dexim, will now enable near field communication (NFC) in the iPhone.

The Tyfone iPhone sleeve uses Tyfone's SideTap MicroSD technology to allow existing iPhone users to make mobile contactless payments directly from their phones.

“Financial institutions and retailers alike are turning to mobile technologies for the next wave of commerce evolution,” said Carol Grunberg, vice president of marketing at Tyfone, in a statement. “Tyfone's technology is built for the widest possible audience, and lets consumers add contactless payment technology to their existing mobile phones.”

Tyfone's SideTap can work in hundreds of millions of phones with memory card slots. The Tyfone iPhone sleeve allows iPhone customers to have the same contactless capabilities as people using Android (News - Alert) BlackBerry and other smartphones. With this capability, the Tyfone iPhone sleeve and SideTap technology transform the iPhone into an electronic wallet.

The Dexim-powered sleeve has a slot to house the Tyfone SideTap MicroSD card, which is a secure memory card integrated with contactless payments technology. This sleeve has built-in circuitry interfacing the 30-pin iPhone connector to a memory card slot to communicate to the smartcard chip in SideTap MicroSD. With a miniature antenna and onboard controller, consumers can store and update any bank account, credit card, prepaid card and other payment information.

“Tyfone is poised to deliver on the promise of mobile contactless payments several years ahead of when industry analysts expect this technology to take off commercially,” said Laconia Cheng, managing director at Dexim. “Through this partnership, Dexim will again use its technology to solve a real market issue with a simple and elegant solution that iPhone users will love.”

Tyfone's contactless payments use NFC technology. NFC technology beams transact information over a very small distance to ensure secure financial transactions. Tyfone's contactless payments solutions put control of the electronic wallet in the hands of the consumer, remaining neutral between financial institutions, mobile operators and retailers.

Recently, Tyfone announced its partnership with Sutherland Global Services (News - Alert), a provider of technology-enabled Business Process Outsourcing services.