Both the flagship Nokia Lumia 920 and the Lumia 820 will come with NFC, the handset maker has announced, and NFC functionality will be included in WP8 apps from Vimeo, YouSendIt and the Michelin Guide. More
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the government body responsible for the maintenance and development of Hong Kong’s financial infrastructure, has announced plans to implement a series of retail payment initiatives, including a first step towards the introduction of an NFC payments platform... More
The new ferrite sheet antenna for NFC phones meets EMVCo’s requirements for a 40mm read range, the component maker says, and can be customized to meet handset manufacturers’ individual requirements. More
The European Commission has given its unconditional approval for the UK’s three largest mobile network operators to form a joint venture company to introduce NFC mobile payments and promotional services in the UK. More
The UK carrier and card issuer’s service is now available on an Android smartphone for the first time and customers who activate Quick Tap on an S III by 5 October will receive a £50 credit they can use to make NFC purchases with their phone. More
The Ativ S Windows Phone 8 smartphone, Ativ Tab Windows 8 tablet and the new edition of the Galaxy Note will all ship with NFC as standard, says Samsung. More
“Sony is putting NFC at the heart of content sharing,” says the electronics giant as it announces six new products featuring NFC capabilities, including two new smartphones, Vaio touchscreen and Ultrabook PCs, a premium headset and a portable speaker unit. More
Two thousand customers who purchase a Samsung Galaxy S III are to be the first Czech consumers to take part in a commercial NFC payments service, offered by carrier Telefonica in conjunction with Komerční Banka, Visa Europe and Samsung. More
The ‘will they or won’t they’ speculation over whether the iPhone 5, expected to be unveiled on 12 September, will come with NFC continues to rage and the latest analysis suggests that it won’t — although two early Apple patents may mean that the conclusions drawn may not turn out to be completely accurate... More
US NFC venture Isis is on course to go live in September, narrowly managing to meet its planned launch date of “this summer”, according to Bloomberg, which says that Verifone CEO Doug Bergeron revealed the timing in an interview... More
“There are 8,500 issuers in the US and literally it will take them a lifetime to actually work through negotiations with all these issuers,” Google Wallet’s Robin Dua has told developers during an online Q&A session on its recent move to a cloud-based approach to card provisioning. More
The exclusive deal between the payments network and the UK’s largest mobile network operator will see Everything Everywhere subscribers being offered a co-branded prepaid NFC payments product and a service allowing small businesses to accept payments using mobile devices. More
All three of Singapore’s mobile network operators are now offering commercial NFC services, enabling consumers to make purchases at more than 20,000 merchant points of sale across Singapore. More
Consumers buying a range of Panasonic appliances including washing machines, rice cookers, air conditioners, washer/driers, a microwave oven, a refrigerator and a range of healthcare devices will be able to interact with the devices using either an NFC phone or a Japanese Osaifu-Keitai mobile wallet phone. More
Examination of a proxy statement filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission by Authentec, linked to Apple’s recent bid to acquire the firm for US$356m, has led to renewed speculation that the next iPhone will include an NFC-enabled version of the Apple Passbook mobile wallet app announced in June... More
Cardholders will be able to add their Discover cards to Google Wallet using a simple “click-to-add” process, via the card issuer’s online account centre, their Google account online or the Google Wallet app on their Android NFC phone. More
NFC payments are five to ten years away from mainstream adoption and on the crossover between the ‘Peak of Inflated Expectations’ and the ‘Trough of Disillusionment’, according to this year’s Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies. NFC as a whole is expected to hit the mainstream more quickly, but is still two to five years away from maturity. More
Walmart, Target, 7-Eleven, Best Buy, Publix, Sears, Shell and Sunoco are amongst a dozen major merchants that have formed a new company called Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) that will provide an alternative to services like Isis and Google Wallet. More
Mobile network operator StarHub, part of the consortium which won a government contract to provide a national NFC TSM service for Singapore last year, has unveiled its NFC SmartWallet and says the service will begin “later this month”. More
Google has unveiled a new version of its Google Wallet service that avoids the requirement for individual payment cards to be loaded onto a secure element. Instead, a prepaid MasterCard which draws funds from linked credit and debit cards is pre-loaded onto the secure element. More