The total number of contactless payment cards and modules shipped globally exceeded 2bn for the first time and accounted for more than three-quarters of the overall total of 2.63bn smart payment card and module shipments during 2021 (76%), according to figures released by the Smart Payment Association (SPA)... More
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Transport for NSW to pilot Opal+ Mobility-as-a-Service app
Transport for NSW is to officially launch the digital version of its Opal transit card that enables passengers to pay fares by tapping a reader with their NFC smartphone or smartwatch and to begin trialling a Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) app that will let users plan, book and pay for multimodal journeys across both private and public transport services... More
US police officers pilot contactless badges that citizens can tap with their NFC phone
Police officers in the city of Alpharetta in Georgia have become the first in the USA to be issued with contactless smart cards that let members of the public access an officer’s ID badge information and contact details by simply tapping the card with their NFC smartphone... More
Clipper promotes digital transit card adoption as plastic card costs rise
Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) in the San Francisco Bay Area in the USA are rewarding passengers for opting for the digital version of the Clipper stored-value transit card “because global supply chain issues have depleted the inventory of plastic cards”, the MTC says... More
More than 90% of card present payments worldwide were made using EMV chip cards in 2021
More than nine in ten card present transactions conducted globally (90.44%) were made using EMV chip-enabled payment cards between January and December 2021, up from 88.55% in 2020, according to standards body EMVCo... More
ST eases payment and consumer application design with new NFC readers
PARTNER NEWS: STMicroelectronics has launched two new NFC Forum reader devices that enable developers and manufacturers to support NFC initiator, target, reader and card emulation modes and make it easier to ensure products conform to EMVCo 3.1a and NFC Forum CR13 specifications... More
Researchers develop edible tags for authenticating whisky and pharmaceuticals
Researchers at Purdue University in Indiana in the USA and the National Institute of Agricultural Sciences in South Korea have developed edible tags containing a 2D barcode that can be placed in bottles of whisky or pharmaceuticals, enabling consumers to authenticate a product by scanning the code with their smartphone... More
In-car contactless parking payments roll out in the US
Drivers in the US can now find, reserve and pay for parking at some 75,000 off-street locations across the country from their vehicle simply by saying “Alexa, find parking nearby” or by instructing the virtual assistant to find parking at a specific destination... More
Ireland tops survey of contactless and cashless payments usage across 14 markets
Nearly two-thirds of consumers in Ireland now make contactless payments with a mobile phone, smartwatch or other device (65%) at least once a month compared with an average of just over half of consumers in other countries (55%), a survey has found... More
Two in three Europeans intend to use the EU’s Digital Identity Wallet
Two in three Europeans (66%) would use the European Digital Identity Wallet (EDIW) that the European Union plans to start piloting in 2023, a survey has found... More
Apple Pay users in the US to get buy now pay later option with iOS 16
Apple iPhone users in the US will soon be able to opt to spread payments for purchases made using Apple Pay over a period of six weeks in four equal instalments using a ‘buy now, pay later’ service integrated into Wallet... More
Apple to add NFC car key support for BYD and additional Hyundai vehicles
Apple is to add support for NFC digital car keys for compatible vehicles manufactured by BYD as well as for additional Hyundai models, enabling purchasers to lock, unlock and start their car from their iPhone or Apple Watch, according to media reports... More
Queensland extends pilot of regional open loop contactless ticketing system
Passengers travelling on the Ferny Grove suburban rail line in Brisbane in Queensland can now pay their fares with a tap of their contactless credit or debit card, mobile phone or smartwatch using the open loop transportation ticketing system that the Australian state is planning to roll out across 18 regional centres this year... More
Square to let merchants begin testing contactless payment acceptance on iPhone with Apple’s Tap to Pay
Merchants will soon be able to accept contactless payments directly on their iPhone using Apple’s Tap to Pay feature via the Square Point of Sale (POS) app without needing to connect their device to any additional hardware... More
Global chip shortages drive increased costs for contactless card manufacturers and issuers
The price of EMV-compliant chips supplied to contactless payment card manufacturers increased by more than 50% in 2021 and is expected to rise by more than 20% during 2022 with the overall cost to card issuers for finished first-use plastic cards rising by between 5% and 20% during 2021, according to US research firm Nilson Report... More
UK cinemas roll out support for contactless IDs
UK cinema-goers who need to verify their age in order to purchase tickets for age-restricted films can now do so using a digital ID card stored on their Android or iOS smartphone that can be authenticated using a QR code... More
Visa adds Tap to Phone contactless payment acceptance for taxi drivers in Hong Kong
Taxi drivers in Hong Kong can now accept contactless payments on a standard Android NFC smartphone using Visa’s Tap to Phone software point of sale (sPOS) solution... More
China pilots NFC devices that combine digital currency payments with student IDs
Students attending Hainan Lu Xun Middle School in the Chinese city of Sanya are the first in the country to trial a digital yuan hard wallet device that enables them to make payments to designated merchants on and off the school’s campus using China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) as well as verify their identity using NFC... More
Biometric remote mobile payments to be worth US$1.2tn globally by 2027
Total transaction values for remote mobile payments authorised using biometric authentication technologies such as face or fingerprint recognition worldwide will reach US$1.2tn by 2027 compared with US$332bn in 2022, according to a forecast by Juniper Research... More
San Antonio adds bike share passes to transit ticketing app
Transport users in San Antonio in Texas in the USA can now purchase, store and activate bike share passes as well as tickets for public transportation services across the city using a single multimodal mobility app... More