In a portable electronic device (100) having a plurality of near field communication applications stored within a plurality of execution environments, an application discovery manager (311) is configured to automatically select and launch one or more of the near field communication applications. A near field communication circuit (300) receives a near field communication request from an external near field communication device (700). The application discovery manager (311) identifies a near field communication technology, a protocol, and an application identifier and then references a registry table (313) to determine identification parameters corresponding with the identified information. The application discovery manager (311) then selects a near field communication application and launches it. The application discovery manager (311) further configures a routing switch (316) to direct data between the near field communication circuit controller (301) and the appropriate execution environment.