Fashion retail chain Zara has taken delivery of 18,000 reloadable contactless keychains that shoppers can choose instead of the retailer’s existing single-use plastic cards when buying a prepaid card as a gift... More
US burger and shakes chain Steak ’n Shake is to make use of face biometrics for both payments and rewards at self-ordering kiosks at 300 of its US outlets, beginning in Orlando, Florida... More
Sportswear brand FILA has partnered with esports icons Ninjas in Pyjamas (NIP) for the launch of an athletic wear collection that includes an NFC-equipped jersey designed to deliver “a more integrated gamification strategy”... More
More than one million US students have now added their student ID card to their NFC mobile phone, double the half a million who had adopted mobile campus IDs a year ago, mobile credential provider Transact Campus reports... More
EMVCo has launched a biometric payment card initiative with the aim of producing a performance requirements document and associated approval and evaluation frameworks that will “enable biometric payment cards to deliver both seamless and secure payment experiences”. More
Korea’s Shinhan Bank is to begin rolling out biometric ATMs that will allow customers to access ATM services without needing to carry a bank card... More
Mastercard and HSBC in the UK are piloting a card recycling system that the payments network hopes will become a blueprint for the global card industry... More
The Central Bank of Somalia (CBS) has unveiled the Somali Quick Response Code (SOMQR), a new EMVCo-based mobile payments standard “that will guide how payment service providers regulated by CBS will issue Quick Response (QR) Codes to merchants and consumers in the country”... More
The NFC Forum has officially announced its technology roadmap for the next five years, including the addition of support for multiple purpose tags, an increase in range for NFC transactions, a modernisation of device-to-device communication, expanded data sharing options and increased power for wireless charging. More
Passengers using Qingdao Metro’s line 4 can now use their NFC mobile phone to pay directly for their fares with China’s digital yuan central bank digital currency (CBDC), even if their mobile phone has no signal or has run out of battery... More
More than a quarter of the 193,000 self-checkout systems shipped to merchants around the world in 2022 were installed in non-grocery stores “as the technology penetrates new segments”, research firm RBR has found. ... More
Adidas has partnered with artist Fewocious for a limited edition drop of 4,500 pairs of sneakers that fans will purchase initially as a digital ‘Trefoil Flower Mint Pass’... More
The European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) has announced plans to introduce an open source product authentication platform that will enable brands to trace their products throughout the supply chain, from their point of manufacture anywhere in the world to their final destination in the EU — and, ultimately, through to the end-consumer... More
Up to 170,000 California residents are set to take part in a pilot of a digital driving licence that they will be able to use to prove their age when making purchases at convenience stores in the US state from late summer 2023... More
Public transportation users in Auckland, New Zealand, will be able to pay their bus, train and ferry fares using a contactless debit/credit card, Apple Pay or Google Pay “within the next 12 months”, the city’s transport authority has announced. ... More
The US Department of Homeland Security’s Science & Technology Directorate has issued a call for applications from technology providers for ‘Privacy Preserving Digital Credential Wallets & Verifiers (Digital Wallets)’... More
LVMH Group is to equip staff at its Sephora, Christian Dior Couture, Celine, Tiffany & Co and Louis Vuitton stores in the US with iPhones that use Apple’s Tap to Pay softPOS solution from “later this year”. More
A new Contactless World Congress presentation that provides in-depth insight into the current state of play and market outlook for next-generation contactless cards is now available in the NFCW Knowledge Centre... More
Contactless cards accounted for 84% of the 2.6bn smart cards and modules delivered worldwide by SPA members and advisory council participants in 2022, the Smart Payment Association reports, an increase of 8% on the 76% share in 2021... More
EMV payments grew by more than 350% as a share of cashless sales at food and beverage vending machines in the US and Canada in 2022, an analysis of a sample set of almost 675,000 active card readers has found. ... More
