Visa Europe and Orange have announced a partnership to encourage the use of mobile-based contactless payments in France.

They’re starting by launching a service called Orange Cash, which will enable Orange customers with an NFC-equipped smartphone to make contactless payments.

New data from the comScore MobiLens service has shown how smartphones are increasingly associated with retail shopping in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Overall, one in five European smartphone users had used their handset to access a retail web site, with more than a quarter of UK smartphone owners visiting retail web sites on their phones.

Orange Group’s Board of Directors has issued a statement reasserting its full confidence in CEO Stéphane Richard, who was placed under formal investigation for fraud last week.

The investigation relates to Mr Richard’s previous role working for the French government; it’s been alleged he was involved in agreeing a €285 million arbitration payment to businessman Bernard Tapie that was inappropriately high.

France Télécom, which has traded as ‘Orange’ within France and abroad for several years, is formally changing the company name to Orange on 1st July 2013. The decision was taken at the shareholders’ AGM today.

Originally a French government department, France Telecom became a separate business in 1990 and was later privatised.

Huawei has used Mobile World Congress 2013 to introduce the Huawei Ascend P2, which it’s describing as the world’s fastest smartphone.

The speed refers to the ‘category 4’ 4G LTE modem, which is capable of download speeds reaching 150 Mbps.