Nokia announced today the NFC version of the Nokia Lumia 610. Orange will be the first operator to offer the Lumia 610 NFC, which can pair with NFC accessories and read NFC tags. The Lumia 610 NFC is expected to be available early in the third quarter of 2012.

Th Nokia Lumia 610 NFC has been certified for contactless payments both with MasterCard PayPass technology, and with Visa’s mobile application for payments at the point of sale, Visa payWave.

“The Nokia Lumia smartphones have been very well received by Orange customers,” said Yves Maitre, Senior VP Mobile Multimedia & Devices at Orange in the press release. “We are now going one step further and adding an NFC-enabled handset to this popular range of devices, enabling people to use contactless services via a single tap. Nokia is a natural fit for us regarding NFC and, like Orange, has shown a very early commitment to the standard.”