US Apple Card holders shopping at Walgreens and Duane Reade stores can now earn 3% cashback on their purchases when they use their mobile phone to make an Apple Pay payment with their Apple Card... More
PepsiCo has launched a loyalty programme that lets customers use their mobile phone to scan a code printed on drink bottles and snack bags to earn 10% cashback each time they buy both a drink and a snack — and receive their rewards as an automatic credit to their PayPal or Venmo account each time their balance reaches US$2... More
RTD, the transportation operator for the city of Denver which launched a transit ticketing integration with Uber in May 2019, has now added a further integration with travel planning app Transit, enabling users to plan and purchase RTD tickets from within the Transit app... More
Public transportation users in Detroit, Michigan, can now use their mobile phone as well as the city’s new contactless transit cards to purchase time-based travel passes that work seamlessly across multiple transportation operators... More
A biometric payments system that uses the shape of a shopper’s hand to identify them at the point of sale (POS) is currently being tested by Amazon employees ahead of a planned pilot at “a handful” of Whole Foods supermarkets early next year, the New York Post reports... More
Passengers using Miami-Dade Transit’s Metrorail service can now pay for their travel using a contactless card issued by Mastercard, Visa or American Express, make mobile payments using Google Pay, Apple Pay and Samsung Pay or select to use Fitbit Pay to pay with a wearable device... More
Apple Card is now available to all US consumers, the iPhone maker has announced — and the 3% cashback offered to cardholders who use their card to make an Apple Pay mobile payment for an Apple product will now be available from “more merchants and apps”... More
Shoppers at 7-Eleven stores in New York can now use their mobile phones to self-checkout and pay for their purchases, the convenience store giant has announced. “Mobile Checkout takes convenience to the next level, letting customers in New York City skip the checkout.” More
New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Agency (MTA) says its new Omny open loop contactless payments system recorded its one millionth transaction on 8 August, “a remarkable milestone accomplished at a much higher usage rate than initially estimated”... More
Apple has instructed its Apple Card issuing partner Goldman Sachs “to approve as many of its 100 million-plus iPhone users in the US as possible” for its new credit card “within the bounds of regulations and responsible lending,” CNBC reports... More
Students at an additional 12 US universities will be able to use their iPhone or Apple Watch “to get into dorms, buy lunch and more” in the coming school year, Apple has announced... More
Three-quarters of Apple Pay users are attracted to the Apple Card — and so are 60% of eligible non-users, a US consumer survey conducted by Auriemma Group has found... More
52% of Apple Pay users say they are likely to apply for an Apple Card in the next 12 months, a JD Power survey of US consumers has found... More
The US Army is looking to replace its current smartcard-based Common Access Card (CAC) with “wireless, lightweight, flexible and rugged” wearable contactless identity tokens that can be inserted into a soldier’s pocket, attached to a sleeve or integrated into a wristband... More
Payment methods like Apple Pay and Google Pay will be used by US consumers to make transactions valued at a total of US$78.6bn this year, representing 1.6% of all US brick-and-mortar retail sales, according to a new forecast from 451 Research... More
Böen Wines is to use NFC tags incorporated into all its bottle caps to let customers easily access information about where and how their wine was made, get advice on food pairings and “share their own experiences with Böen within the platform and via social media”... More
New logistics technologies introduced at DHL Global Chicago hub — Healthcare Packaging — “Using near field communication (NFC) technology, sensors log in-transit ambient environmental temperature conditions during shipping, functioning at temperatures between -40 and +60 degrees Celsius. The sensors allow uploading of temperature data directly to the DHL mobile app and LifeTrack web portal, making them cost effective and easy to use without the need for specific scanners or devices… DHL has seen a 40% increase in operational capabilities using these scanners.”
Titanium Apple Card activation with background NFC tag reading — Ata Distance — “Apple has posted two videos for activating the Titanium Apple Card: a video for A12 Bionic iPhone XR/XS with background NFC tag reading, and a video for non-A12 Bionic iPhones without background NFC tag reading ability. This marks the first time Apple has put A12 Bionic background NFC tag reading ability to use, almost a year since the new functionality appeared.”
ShipChain and GTX Corp launch global NFC blockchain shipment tracking solution — ShipChain — “The NFC tags provide real-time temperature sensing and data logging across the supply chain necessary with transportation of perishables; food, drinks, pharmaceuticals and other temperature-sensitive products that can be negatively affected by conditions in transit. These built-in security measures can prevent the distribution of contaminated supplies in the marketplace and unauthorised modification of data logs, allowing brands, retailers, distributors, and freight forwarders to verify shipment quality.”
Mastercard enables luxury shoppers to purchase with confidence — Mastercard — “Consumers will be able to shop the exclusive Rodarte pieces at Fred Segal Sunset with the ability to scan a QR code on the garment’s tag to trace each step of the product journey. Consumers who purchase from Fred Segal’s online store can learn more about the product journey and verify authenticity by scanning the QR code when their package arrives at home.”
• See NFCW's full list of trials, pilots, tests and live services around the world...
