Employees at Panasonic Taiwan’s head office in New Taipei City will soon be able to order and pay for meals online and collect them from on-premises contactless smart lockers by scanning a unique QR code... More
Author archive:
Apple adds NFC car key support for Hyundai and Kia vehicles
Apple users purchasing the 2022 models of Hyundai’s Genesis GV60 and G90 and Kia’s Niro cars will be able to lock, unlock and start the vehicle using an NFC digital car key stored on their iPhone or Apple Watch... More
Holland America Line lets cruise passengers check in with their face
Passengers on Holland America Line cruise ships will soon be able to check in before embarkation with their face using contactless biometric face verification technology and confirm their health status with a digital version of their Covid-19 vaccination certificate or test results stored on their mobile device... More
Apple acquires open banking provider Credit Kudos
Apple has acquired Credit Kudos, an update to the UK-based open banking provider’s website reveals, describing the company as “a subsidiary of Apple” and confirming media reports... More
MBTA to add open loop contactless ticketing and digital transit card
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) in the US is to expand its fare payments system to enable passengers to pay for their journeys with a contactless credit card, mobile wallet or a digital version of their CharlieCard transit card... More
Apple digital driving licences and IDs go live in Arizona
Apple users in Arizona are the first in the US to be able to add digital versions of their driving licence and state ID documents to Wallet and use them to verify their identity by tapping their iPhone or Apple Watch at selected Transportation Security Administration (TSA) security checkpoints... More
Banks develop interoperable platform for cross-border CBDC transactions
The Bank of International Settlements and the central banks of Australia, Malaysia and Singapore have completed a joint project to develop a shared platform that could facilitate direct cross-border transactions between institutions using different central bank digital currencies (CBDCs)... More
Houston to expand mobile ticketing options
The Metropolitan Transit Authority in Houston, Texas, in the USA is planning to enable passengers on its bus and light rail services to pay their fares with their mobile device as well as with a contactless transit card or via its mobile ticketing app when it upgrades its fare collection system... More
RTC adds support for contactless EMV card fare payments
Passengers on Regional Transport Commission of Southern Nevada (RTC) buses in the Las Vegas valley area of the USA can now make contactless fare payments by tapping their EMV payment card on an onboard validator... More
Iraqi bank to pilot biometric payment cards
Customers of Al-Mansour Bank in Iraq will be among the first in the country to be able to trial biometric payment cards that allow them to authenticate contactless payments with their fingerprints... More
Korean buses roll out ‘tagless’ Bluetooth fare payments
Gyeonggi-do Province Transportation Bureau in South Korea has officially launched a ‘tagless’ fare payment system that uses Bluetooth technology to detect a Bluetooth signal from a passenger’s smartphone when they board and alight from the vehicle and then automatically charges their pre- or post-paid transit card for their fare... More
Bank of Ghana lays out core design principles for CBDC pilot
The Bank of Ghana (BOG) is to pilot a two-tier token-based retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) that can be used with either a digital wallet app managed by a financial institution or a physical hardware wallet such as a contactless smart card that can be used offline and by unbanked consumers... More
First National Bank reports ‘surge’ in contactless payments from smart devices in South Africa
The total transaction values of contactless payments made using a smart device processed by retail and commercial clients of South Africa’s First National Bank (FNB) has increased from R640m (US$43m) in 2020 to “in excess” of R4.2bn (US$3bn) in 2021, the bank reports... More
China updates digital yuan wallet app for Apple users
China has issued an update to the pilot version of its digital yuan wallet app for Apple users that is “adapted to the iOS 15.4 system changes” released this week, and has uncovered an attempt to use the central bank digital currency (CBDC) in a fraud and money laundering case, according to local media reports... More
Average UK contactless transaction value rises by 30%
The value of the average contactless payment made in the UK has risen by 30% since the country increased its contactless spending limit from £45 (US$59) to £100 (US$132) in October last year, according to figures from UK Finance... More
Apple Pay goes live in Argentina and Peru
Apple Pay has launched in Argentina and Peru with support for Mastercard and Visa cards issued by six banks in Argentina and five in Peru. It has confirmed the service is now live in both countries. More
China to roll out digital ID cards nationwide
China is to roll out a digital version of its national identity card that residents can store and access on their smartphone across the whole country “this year”, the Chinese premier Li Keqiang has told a press briefing... More
Developers to use NFC to give reusable plastic containers unique digital identities
A UK-based consortium is to investigate the use of ultra-low-cost NFC technology to give individual items of reusable plastic packaging a unique digital identity (UDI) in order to track them across each package’s lifecycle, encourage their reuse and enable the development of a scalable packaging-as-a-service infrastructure... More
Rhode Island trials geofenced free contactless ticketing
Passengers using transport services provided by Rhode Island Public Transit Authority (RIPTA) in Central Falls in the US will soon be able to travel for free when they scan their Wave smart transit card or mobile app on services originating and operating within the city... More
Citi to roll out NFC mobile payments to corporate cardholders in 40 countries
Citi Commercial Cards is to enable its business customers in more than 40 markets worldwide to digitise their plastic corporate payment card or provision a virtual card into a mobile wallet and use it to make NFC mobile payments... More