O2 (UK) telephone line and broadband business of Telefónica UK, trading under the O2 and Be brands. The company agreed to pay £180 million initially, followed by a further £20 million after all customers had been transferred to Sky's existing business. The sale was subject to regulatory approval in April 2013, and was subsequently approved by the Office of Fair Trading on 16 May 2013. O2 began trialling a Near Field Communication (NFC) payment system in 2007. In 2009, O2 was in discussions with large retailers, such as Tesco and W. H. Smith, for the deployment of the necessary electronic point of
O2 Money not preclude future partnerships with other banks. O2 Money has been described by Ronan Dunne, CEO at O2, as the first step in implementing NFC technology in mobile phones in the United Kingdom. The service received over 100,000 applications in the first seven weeks, making it the most successful financial card launch in the United Kingdom. Both cards were provided free and exclusive to O2 customers. A spokesman for O2 announced on 3 February 2011 the company’s plans to release a "mobile wallet" application, an NFC-powered mobile payment application for NFC-enabled smartphones in the second half of 2011. O2 has