Mobile offers platform Shopkick, which is working with a number of high profile US retailers to roll out a network of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons, has been acquired by SK Planet (SKP), operator of Korea’s largest shopper rewards program and part of the same group as carrier SK Telecom... More
Miami International Airport has become the first in the world to use an open approach to deploying Bluetooth beacons across its footprint... More
More than one million journeys have been paid for using a contactless payment card since Transport for London (TfL) began accepting the cards on the underground and commuter rail services on 16 September... More
Stripe “is the sole Facebook payments partner” for its ‘buy’ button trial, Re/code reports... More
China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile network operator, has chosen Gemalto to supply it with NFC-enabled SIMs “to protect consumer credentials used for mobile contactless applications, starting with mass transit services in Beijing.”... More
“One of the largest financial institutions in North America” is conducting an NFC mobile payments pilot that uses the Wave NFC device developed by On Track Innovations (OTI) in combination with provisioning and mobile wallet technology provided by ABnote... More
The US Federal Reserve’s Mobile Payments Industry Workgroup (MPIW) has given cautious backing to the potential of tokenization in mobile payments and formed a subgroup dedicated to exploring the impact of the technology in more depth... More
Mary Carol Harris, Visa Europe’s high profile director of mobile, has joined Apple Europe to work on Apple Pay... More
Barclaycard is to extend the functionality of its bPay contactless wristband to include access control as well as payments, the card issuer has revealed, beginning with the introduction of branded bPay bands for fans of Southampton Football Club that deliver a range of added value benefits to wearers... More
PARTNER NEWS: Chip maker AMS, one of two NFC IC suppliers to Apple, has introduced a development kit and software stack designed to make it easy to build NFC functionality into routers, set-top boxes, automotive infotainment systems, consumer electronics devices, home appliances and other NFC-enabled electronics products... More
Chinese online payments giant Alipay has adopted Nok Nok Labs’ S3 Authentication Suite, enabling customers with a Samsung Galaxy S5 to use the fingerprint sensor (FPS) on their device to authenticate payments... More
The NFC Forum has added analog testing to its certification program, enabling device manufacturers to prove that their products are compliant with international radio frequency (RF) performance specifications for the first time... More
A teardown conducted by iFixit shows that Apple is using NFC chips from both NXP and AMS in the new iPhone 6, which began shipping today. The inclusion of an NXP chip was expected but the AMS chip is a surprise addition. More
Apple has joined GlobalPlatform, the organisation responsible for defining standards for the secure elements used to store sensitive data in NFC phones... More
Panasonic Avionics is to add NFC to the in-flight entertainment (IFE) systems it supplies to airlines, providing a way for passengers and crew to make contactless payments and for passengers to access a range of personalized travel benefits... More
UK-based supermarket giant Tesco is trialling a mobile payments service based on QR codes, Marketing Week reports... More
Macy’s Inc, owner of the Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s department store chains, has unveiled plans to implement a range of new technologies designed to provide an omnichannel shopping service to its customers... More
Subway restaurants across the US are to begin accepting NFC mobile payments on 1 October, using new POS terminals that carry branding from mobile network operator-owned commerce venture Softcard... More
The kickback from card issuers negotiated by Apple for purchases made via its new Apple Pay mobile payments service amounts to 0.15% of the value of each transaction, the Financial Times reports... More
Owners of Apple’s new NFC-enabled smartwatch and iPhones will not be able to make Apple Pay mobile payments in either Walmart or Best Buy, the Wall Street Journal reports... More