Barclays is to run a three month Bluetooth beacon technology trial at its Pinstone Street branch in Sheffield, UK, to alert bank staff to the presence of customers with disabilities... More
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Scotiabank adds smartwatch app
Canada’s Scotiabank has launched a Quick Balance app for the Samsung Gear 2 and Samsung Gear S smartwatches that lets customers check their account balance with a swipe of the screen... More
White paper explores the benefits of host card emulation
A new white paper that explores how host card emulation (HCE) can overcome the challenges faced by service providers when implementing secure NFC services is now available to download from the NFC World+ Knowledge Centre... More
Indian shopping malls to pilot iBeacon
Mobile marketing and advertising platform BeaconStream is to pilot iBeacon technology in malls in Bengaluru and Chennai, India, within the next three weeks, The Hindu reports... More
Sephora adds Apple Pay
Cosmetics store chain Sephora has rolled out support for Apple Pay in all five of its Bay Area stores in the US and is also testing NFC payments acceptance in one Manhattan location in New York... More
Restaurants in India offer NFC payments
Indian restaurant chain Adigas is rolling out NFC payments to its customers in partnership with mobile payment company iKaaz, starting first in its Brahmin’s Coffee Bar in south Bangalore... More
HouseTab drives usage with charity donations
Mobile app HouseTab is to donate US$1 to the Food Bank For New York City each time someone registers to use the app until the beginning of January, and will make additional donations every time the app is used to pay for a tab or to send drinks or food... More
17% of French consumers make mobile payments
Almost one fifth (17%) of French consumers have now made a mobile payment, with 25% of 16-34 year olds claiming to have done so compared with 13% of 35-75 year olds, research released by telecoms company Prixtel has revealed... More
Magyar Telekom launches NFC in Hungary
Magyar Telekom, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom and a member of the Hungarian Mobile Wallet Association, has launched the MobilTarca NFC mobile wallet in Hungary after a successful pilot that began in July last year... More
Danish carriers abandon mobile payments ambitions
Paii, the mobile payments joint venture created by Danish mobile network operators TDC, Telenor, Telia and 3, has been sold to Swipp, a mobile payments service owned by a consortium of more than 60 banks, after Paii came to the conclusion that the telcos are not as well placed as banks to take the platform forward... More
Swirl reports positive consumer feedback on in-store beacon offers
Six in ten (60%) shoppers who receive a beacon-triggered message while shopping in a store open and engage with the content and 30% redeem beacon-triggered offers at the point of sale, analysis by Bluetooth beacon offers platform Swirl has found... More
High value contactless payments arrive in the UK
A new service that lets NFC phone users enter their PIN on their mobile device to confirm a high value transaction is making it possible for UK consumers to make contactless payments valued at more than the current £20 (US$32) transaction limit for the first time... More
Latvian merchants and ski resorts adopt NFC loyalty platform
Latvian startup Walmoo has launched a mobile loyalty platform that uses standard NFC phones or tablets to provide customers with the ability to redeem coupons, discounts and offers... More
Semble picks Gemalto for NFC in NZ
Semble, the NFC payments joint venture between New Zealand’s carriers and the Paymark payments network, is using Gemalto’s Allynis Trusted Service Hub to secure over-the-air provisioning of payment credentials to users’ NFC devices... More
Contactless makes Word of the Year shortlist
‘Contactless’ has made the shortlist for the Oxford Dictionaries’ Word of the Year 2014 but missed out on the top spot to the word ‘vape’... More
Harris+Hoole reports 200,000 mobile payments
Tesco-backed UK coffee chain Harris+Hoole’s mobile ordering and payments app has now been downloaded more than 22,000 times and has been used by customers over 200,000 times since its launch in June 2014... More
Dunkin’ Mobile gets 10m downloads
Dunkin’ Donuts’ Dunkin’ Mobile payments and rewards app has been downloaded more than 10m times since its launch in 2012 and two million customers have signed up for its DD Perks loyalty program, available on mobile and via a plastic card, the US merchant has revealed... More
CUP to launch Android Pay in China
China UnionPay (CUP) is planning to introduce “Android Pay”, an NFC-based mobile payments service, in the third quarter of 2015, Yicai reports... More
Norwich buses get Bluetooth beacons that deliver offers to passengers on the move
UK transportation operator FirstGroup has installed Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons on buses in the city of Norwich to help deliver content and offers to passengers’ smartphones... More
Ugo launches open NFC payments and rewards wallet in Canada
Ugo, an open NFC mobile wallet developed by Canadian banks President’s Choice Financial and TD Bank Group, is now available to customers of all three major Canadian carriers who own one of a range of supported BlackBerry 10 and Android NFC devices... More