TNS report shows alternative and cashless payments adoption at an inflection point with security a concern to wider usage — TNS — “44% of respondents are willing to make a payment using a wearable device like a ring or a bracelet; just under two-thirds (65%) expressed that security concerns would stop them from using a wearable device to make a payment; Australians are most concerned about security (68%) versus Americans (64%) and Britons (63%); more than half of male smartwatch owners have used it to make a payment.”
Archive for June 2019
Apple extends GymKit NFC functionality to additional gym equipment market leaders
Apple has added three US gym equipment manufacturers — Octane Fitness, True Fitness and Woodway — to its growing list of partners worldwide for NFC-based GymKit for the Apple Watch, which enables users to sync their workout data between their watch and fitness machines... More
NFC testing disruptor Cilab joins the NFC World Partner Program
PARTNER NEWS: Cilab’s ci230 high speed tester takes a whole new approach to NFC testing that makes it faster and easier to conduct pre-certification testing, makes the certification process quicker and cheaper, lets customers get a fast return on investment — and a competitive advantage from speeding up time to market... More
Japanese government to adopt iPhone NFC chip reading for citizen ID
iOS 13 NFC for Japanese Individual Number Cards — Ata Distance — “Individual Number Cards are supported by card readers that require a personal computer and additional software. NFC tag reading with a smartphone is much easier because it can work out of the box and an app. Android phones are supported but limited to select Aquos, Galaxy and Xperia smartphone models. iPhone NFC tag support in iOS 13 will considerably widen the user footprint.”
Imperial College develops NFC tag-based freshness detection system to reduce food waste
Researchers at Imperial College London have developed low-cost NFC-based spoilage sensors for meat and fish packaging that could be in supermarkets within three years and help to reduce the amount of still safe to eat food that UK consumers throw away each year because it has reached its sell-by date... More
European mobile wallets adopt Alipay QR code format to boost payment interoperability
Six European mobile wallet providers — Bluecode (Austria), ePassi (Finland), Momo Pocket (Spain), Pagaqui (Portugal), Pivo (Finland) and Vipps (Norway) — have adopted a QR code format from Chinese payment provider Alipay to ensure digital payment interoperability and improve the international reach of customers’ wallets as well as boosting sales, participants have told NFCW... More
Malibu rolls out NFC connected bottles in the US
Drinks brand Malibu is launching an NFC-based promotion in the US states of Ohio and Texas that enables customers to use NFC tags attached to 300,000 ‘connected bottles’ to win branded goods and access cocktail recipes and other content... More
Transit operators report on plans for a cross-border transit ticketing platform for Europe
Developing cross-border ticketing in public transport networks — Intelligent Transport — “Based on the concept of account-based ticketing, nationally differing ticketing systems can be linked without the need to change existing national standards. Key to the success of this is letting different systems coexist, but while introducing an interoperable layer that can connect the different existing national systems.”
Uber eyes move into banking and payments business
Uber is making a fintech push with a New York hiring spree — CNBC — “There are many possible payment and lending innovations Uber could come up with: It has 93 million active users globally, most of whom use linked credit cards or fund a wallet called Uber Cash to pay for rides and food delivery… Creating a bank account has been discussed at a high level at Uber but may be years away, or the company could decide against it.”
College football fans to get NFC ticketing for access to games
Paciolan announces support for contactless tickets in Apple Wallet for college sports — Paciolan — “The first schools to offer contactless tickets for the fall 2019 football season include Baylor University, Louisiana State University, Michigan State University, University of Mississippi, Georgia Tech, and Rutgers University.”
Digital wallets to be used by half the world’s population by 2024
Half the world’s population to use digital wallets by 2024 — Juniper Research — “A new study from Juniper Research has found that the number of people using digital wallets will increase from 2.3bn this year to nearly 4bn, or 50% of the world’s population, by 2024. This in turn will push wallet transaction values up by more than 80% to more than $9tn per annum.”
MTA reports continued uptick in contactless card usage on New York subway
MTA: Latest Omny numbers ‘exceed even our most ambitious’ projections — Gothamist — “After sharing higher-than-forecasted numbers from Saturday (the first full day of service), the latest user numbers (which reflect numbers from Saturday through Wednesday) reveal that 38,987 people have used Omny at pilot locations… The MTA had expected weekly usage to be about 6,000-12,000 users on the subways and 800-1,500 on buses.”
Four in ten POS terminals now accept contactless payments
Have contactless cards become the tool of choice for low-value payments? — RBR — “At the end of 2017, there were 5.3bn contactless cards in circulation worldwide — this represents 35% of all cards, a share that RBR forecasts will increase to 57% by 2023… The number of eftpos terminals worldwide which allow contactless payments rose by 41% in 2017 to reach 40.9m.”
EPC reports on QR and Bluetooth mobile payments in Europe
White Paper: Non-NFC based Mobile Sepa Card Proximity Payments — European Payments Council — “The document aims to create awareness amongst the payments industry about the development of non-NFC based MCPP [Mobile Sepa Card Proximity Payments] solutions and to provide a common understanding of the MCPP landscape. This final version also reflects the outcome of a three-month public consultation that ended in February 2019.”
Ice hockey fans to use NFC ticketing at NHL stadiums
NHL takes ticketless path with Ticketmaster extension — SportsPro — “Going forward, NHL tickets will include near field communication (NFC) technology that allows fans to ‘tap’ into a venue entrance, and aims to protect against digital tickets being copied and resold… The deal comes after the NHL, which introduced mobile ticketing during its Stadium Series in 2018, experienced an 85% and 88% growth in the number of fans using mobile tickets during its 2018 and 2019 All-Star games, respectively.”
Android Q to let Google Pay users quickly switch between payment cards
Android Q Beta 4: Google Pay cards could live in power menu w/ ‘Cards & Passes’ — 9to5Google — “Cards will apparently appear as soon as the power button is long-pressed and users can then swipe through them, presumably to switch the card being used with NFC payments. Based on the description, this carousel will also be able to show things such as loyalty cards and tickets.”
Decathlon to introduce scan and go to all stores in the Netherlands
Customers at sporting goods retailer Decathlon in the Netherlands who don’t want to line up at a physical checkout can now simply scan their goods, pay and leave — without setting off alarms — thanks to the introduction of a mobile self-checkout solution... More
Google Pay issues major update to its API for Passes
Google has announced a suite of upgrades for transportation operators, airlines and loyalty card issuers that extends the functionality of its Google Pay API for Passes — and revealed future plans to make Passes “available to your users on Google even if they haven’t installed the Google Pay app”... More
Apple to let iPhone owners use NFC to read all types of contactless card — except for payments cards
iPhone users will soon be able to read a full array of ISO 7816 contactless smartcards and tags, including passports, transit and access cards, Apple has revealed... More
Confirmed: iOS 13 to include support for NFC passport reading
Apple’s update to its Core NFC framework for iOS 13 will include support for reading passports and ID documents, chip checker app maker Innovalor has confirmed to NFC World... More