Swedish sportswear brand Houdini has added an NFC-enabled zipper pull to its latest One Parka waterproof coat that lets consumers who purchase the garment connect with the brand and access use and care guides, support services and other digital features with a tap of their NFC smartphone... More
Starbucks customers have accumulated a total unspent balance of US$1.628bn on the company’s prepaid physical and digital reward and gift cards, the coffee giant’s 2021 Q3 earnings call has revealed... More
Owners of Android NFC smartphones can now purchase, store and validate digital tickets and monthly or annual passes for buses, trams and other public transportation services in the French city of Strasbourg on their mobile device... More
An Australian parliamentary committee has held a public hearing at which it heard evidence from representatives of leading Australian banks, payment services providers and other financial bodies on regulatory issues including whether companies such as Apple should be mandated to allow third-party payment apps access to a smartphone’s NFC chip. More
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Passengers travelling on express bus services in the Santa Barbara region of the US state of California can now pay their fares by tapping an on-board payment reader with their contactless debit, credit, prepaid card or mobile wallet... More
Eesti Pank, the central bank of Estonia, has tested a blockchain-powered technical solution for the use of a digital euro central bank digital currency (CBDC) that it says is capable of handling more than 300,000 simultaneous payments a second and enables payees to receive a payment in less than two seconds. More
All merchants and other commercial enterprises across the Sultanate of Oman will be obligated to offer customers the option of making cashless payments for goods and services from 1 January 2022... More
The total value of contactless card transactions worldwide will reach US$2.5tn in 2021, up from US$1.7tn in 2020, Juniper Research predicts. The researchers also forecast that card payments will retain “the majority share of overall contactless transaction values at 79% in 2021”. More
Consumers in Poland will soon be able to use their Android NFC device to make tokenized contactless payments at the point of sale (POS) directly from their bank account via their mobile banking app without needing a debit or credit card... More
Swiss consumers with a Twint digital wallet will be able to make digital payments with their credit card or directly from their bank account in other European countries from 2022, the Swiss mobile payments service says... More
Students and staff at Kindai University in the Japanese city of Osaka are testing a biometric payments service that enables them to authenticate payments with their face even when they are wearing a mask... More
Fans of Liverpool Football Club in England will be able to gain entry to home games at Anfield Stadium by scanning a digital NFC season pass or match ticket stored on their smartphone at stadium turnstiles... More
Passengers travelling on Moscow Metro can now buy and top up a Troika transit card directly from within their mobile banking app... More
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Nearly 21m (20.87m) personal and 3.51m corporate digital yuan wallets have so far been issued during China’s ongoing trials of its central bank digital currency (CBDC), the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has revealed. More
Owners, trainers and breeders of thoroughbred racehorses in the UK and Ireland will soon be able to receive a digital passport that will allow them to confirm the identity of a horse and store information about its health, welfare, movements and ownership... More
The European Central Bank (ECB) has officially launched its digital euro project with a two-year investigation into key issues regarding the design, distribution and use of a central bank digital currency (CBDC). More
Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in the US have developed fabric-friendly NFC sensors that can be woven into the surface of everyday objects such as cushions and pillows and enable them to locate other objects and sense a human presence... More
Google Pay users with an NFC-enabled Android smartphone in the US can now request a virtual debit card that allows them to make in-store contactless payments directly from their Google Pay balance. More
Customers ordering takeaway food from eight restaurants in the Canadian city of Waterloo can now opt to receive their order in a reusable and recyclable food container embedded with an NFC tag that allows the service provider to track each container throughout the reuse cycle... More
China could be ready to officially launch the digital yuan as a fully operational central bank digital currency (CBDC) after the Beijing Winter Olympics in early 2022, according to reports in the Chinese media... More
