Apple hires Near-Field Communications expert

Apple has hired Benjamin Vigier, a veteran of Near-Field Communications (NFC) development, as its new product manager for mobile commerce. Vigier, who joined Apple in July, according to his LinkedIn page, was most recently product manager for mobile wallet, payment, and NFC at US mobile payments company mFoundry. NFC World reports that while at mFoundry, Vigier helped develop and managed both the PayPal Mobile service and Starbucks’ barcode-based mobile payments service, among several other high-profile projects. It is not yet known what future products Vigier may be working on for Apple, but the company has applied for a number of NFC-related patents over the past year. [via Mac Rumors]