French railway operator SNCF has expanded availability of its NFC ticketing service to include the Alsace, Aquitaine, Haute-Normandie, Lorraine and Midi-Pyrenees regions... More
Archive for March 2015
Vivo expands Zuum mobile payments service
MFS, a joint venture between Telefonica-owned carrier Vivo and MasterCard, has expanded its Vivo Zuum mobile payment service to São Paulo, the biggest city in Brazil... More
Alibaba boss demonstrates selfie payments
Alibaba founder and executive chairman Jack Ma has demonstrated a prototype biometric verification service that could enable a payment to be authorized by simply capturing an image of a mobile phone user’s face. More
Finnish banks add HCE payments to Pivo mobile wallet
Finland’s largest financial services group is to add support for HCE payments to the mobile wallet app it introduced two years ago... More
Halifax checks pulse of biometric wristband
UK bank Halifax is investigating how Bionym’s Nymi Band, a device that uses the wearer’s unique cardiac rhythm to authenticate their identity, could be used to reduce the need for customers to remember their passwords... More
Four in ten US iPhone 6 owners have now used Apple Pay
Apple Pay has been tried at least once by 42% of iPhone 6 and 6 Plus owners in the US, a survey by Auriemma Consulting Group (ACG) has found — and almost half the owners who haven’t yet tried the NFC mobile payments service (47%) say they intend to do so within the next six months... More
All smiles as UK shoppers use contactless to give to charity
UK shoppers have been able to make contactless donations to a national charity via 10 larger-than-life statues of famous comedians placed in cities across the country... More
Swatch CEO discusses NFC watch plans
Swatch will launch its first watch containing an NFC chip within two months, CEO Nick Hayek has announced — and deals signed with China UnionPay as well as one other payments network mean that owners will be able to use their watch to make payments around the world... More
Carrefour extends grocery shopping to smartwatches
Customers at a Carrefour hypermarket in Paris are now able to use their smartwatch to access their digital shopping list, tick off items as they go and receive loyalty points when they check out... More
Square buys mPOS developer Kili
Square has bought Kili Technology, the Canada-based mPOS startup that acquired NFC-on-microSD pioneer DeviceFidelity in November 2014... More
NFC shopping service goes live in Paris supermarket
French supermarket chain Intermarché has introduced an NFC shopping service at its Issy-les-Moulineaux, Paris store, enabling customers to add products to a digital shopping basket and receive personalised discount vouchers with a tap of their NFC phone... More
Most iPhone 6 owners yet to use Apple Pay
Four in five iPhone 6 and 6+ owners in the US are yet to make use of Apple Pay (79%), a Trustev survey has found... More
NXP unveils connected car with NFC and payments
NXP Semiconductors has showcased a proof-of-concept connected car that makes use of long-range UHF RFID tags and NFC to help drivers of the future access and pay for restricted parking spaces, get warnings of traffic jams and allow groceries or parcels to be delivered directly into their car without them even being there to open the trunk... More
Commbank turns on HCE
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) is now offering customers with an NFC mobile phone running Android 4.4 KitKat or higher the ability to make mobile payments using host card emulation... More
One in three boarding passes to go mobile
More than 1.5bn airline boarding passes will be delivered via mobile by 2019, up from 745m this year, Juniper Research predicts... More
Starbucks expands mobile ordering
Coffee chain Starbucks is expanding its Mobile Order & Pay service to 650 locations in the US states of Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Alaska following a trial which has been running in Portland since December 2014... More
Seqr promotes mobile payments with cashback offers to users
Sweden-based mobile payments provider Seamless is offering users of its Seqr mobile payments service up to 3% cashback on their purchases, “valid on all purchases and effective on top of any other loyalty program or discount.” The offer is designed to persuade more consumers to adopt mobile payments, CEO Peter Fredell has told NFC World, and is financed via a mixture of revenue streams. More
Apple demonstrates smartwatch keys and payments
How Apple Watch owners will be able to use their device to make payments, unlock hotel rooms and the garage doors at their home has been demonstrated by Kevin Lynch, Apple’s VP of Technology, at the company’s Spring Forward launch event... More
TfL tests guide beacons for the blind
Transport for London (TfL) is testing the use of Bluetooth beacons that work with a mobile app to provide guidance to visually impaired passengers travelling on the London Underground... More
SXSW to deploy 1,000 beacons
The organizers of the annual SXSW music and film festival are working with Gimbal, RightRound and Urban Airship to place 1,000 Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons around the event’s venues... More