Direct from Business Wire and reproduced here:

ViVOtech, the near field communication (NFC) software and systems company, today announced it has won the 2011 Contactless Monkey Award in the category of On High Street, for its NFC project with the National Bank of Kuwait and Kuwait’s Mobile Telecommunications Co., known as Zain, using VISA EMV compliant payment cards, coupons and promotions.

“ViVOtech’s award winning project for the National Bank of Kuwait introduced a unique prepaid card distribution application that allows consumers to tap their NFC enabled phone on an NFC enabled smart poster in a mall to download a prepaid VISA card in just a minute or two”, said Mohammed Khan, ViVOtech founder and president. This patent pending NFC application utilizing ViVOtech software enables issuers to widely distribute prepaid, gift, and loyalty cards to consumers’ NFC mobile phones from any public place.

In addition, using ViVOtech technology Zapa Technology won the High Throughput Beverage Award for its project with Insomnia Coffee in Ireland, U.K.-based EAT won the High Throughput Food and the VISA Pay/Wave Awards; and Business Leader of the Year was given to Will Judge, head of future ticketing at Transport for London.

“The payments, loyalty, marketing and merchandising industry has just begun a total transformation as mobile NFC technology moves from test projects to full scale commercial rollout this year and next,” said Khan. “The application we introduced in Kuwait was just the latest in a history of NFC firsts at ViVOtech.”

The Contactless Monkey Awards are presented to companies, organizations and retailers that have done the most to embrace and implement contactless technology into their day-to-day operating practices. The competition was open to all implemented contactless applications within the relevant sectors, regardless of geographic region or size of corporation.

The On High Street award is given to the company or retailer that has done the most to incorporate contactless into their service and payment structure and had the most success from doing so. Other finalists for the On High Street award included Clinton Cards in the U.K.; an NFC trial in Sitges, Spain by La Caixa and Telefonica O2; and an NFC loyalty solution for Allied Irish Bank by Zapa Technology.

The fourth edition of the Contactless Monkey Award, organized annually by Krowne Communications’s Contactless Intelligence, saw a record number of entries, underlining the growing significance of NFC payment, loyalty, marketing and merchandizing applications.