McDonald’s is testing an automated contactless system at an outlet near Fort Worth in the US state of Texas that enables customers to order, pay for and collect food and beverages prepared by staff in the outlet’s kitchen from a conveyor belt without needing to use a conventional checkout or pick up their orders from a front-of-house employee... More
Passengers travelling on bus, trolley and rapid transit lines in the US city of Philadelphia can now purchase, store and activate QR code tickets for up to five people travelling the same route on their Apple or Android smartphone... More
Android users in Maryland are the first in the US to be able to create and store digital versions of their state identity card and driving licence in Google Wallet on their NFC smartphone and use it to verify their identity at Transportation Security Administration (TSA) security checkpoints at selected airports... More
The city of Tampa in Florida in the USA is to pilot a Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) app that will enable participants to plan multimodal journeys using both public and private transportation and purchase and store digital transit tickets and passes on their mobile device... More
Gamblers visiting Resorts World Las Vegas can now register, verify their identity, join a loyalty program and upload funds to a dedicated digital wallet before they arrive at the resort, and will no longer have to confirm their identity with casino staff prior to purchasing gambling chips and placing contactless cashless bets at slot machines directly from their smartphone... More
Researchers at North Carolina State University in the USA have developed and tested a technique for integrating low-cost wearable devices such as motion sensors into clothing by embroidering patches containing yarns that draw energy from a wearer’s movements onto standard fabric or already existing garments... More
Passengers arriving on international cruise ships at the US port of San Diego can now verify their identity on entry to the country using biometric face recognition technology rather than by presenting physical documents to immigration officers from US Customs and Border Protection (CBP)... More
The global cardless ATM market will have increased in value by US$2.11bn by 2026, an expansion driven by the growing adoption of NFC- and QR code-enabled smartphones and the emergence of biometric ATM technology, according to a Technavio forecast... More
Students at Penn State University in the US will soon be able to gain access to halls of residence and other campus facilities and to make contactless on-campus purchases using a digital student identity card stored on their Apple or Android NFC smartphone or smartwatch... More
Colorado has become the third US state to add support for Apple digital IDs, enabling residents with an iPhone or Apple Watch to create and store digital versions of their driving licence or state ID documents in Wallet and use them to verify their identity by tapping their device at selected Transportation Security Administration (TSA) security checkpoints... More
Apple has begun retailing NFC-enabled smart door locks that are compatible with its digital Home Key feature, enabling users in the USA to lock and unlock their home with a tap of their iPhone or Apple Watch using a digital key stored in Wallet... More
Airports in the USA and elsewhere around the world could soon begin testing biometric access control cards that use a built-in fingerprint sensor to verify the identity of employees or other authorised cardholders at points of entry to secure areas... More
New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) has added support for reduced fares to its Omny open loop contactless payments service, enabling eligible senior citizens and people with disabilities to receive a discount whenever they tap to pay for their subway or bus journey using their debit or credit card, smartphone or wearable device... More
Voters in the US state of Mississippi will be able to verify their identity when proving their eligibility to vote in November’s mid-term elections using a digital version of their driving licence stored in the state’s Mobile ID digital identity wallet on their smartphone... More
Fans attending sports matches, concerts and other events at Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena in the US state of Washington can now opt to pay for their purchases with their palm at three additional food and drink outlets across the venue... More
Samsung Wallet is to roll out in Bahrain, Denmark, Finland, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Norway, Oman, Qatar, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates, enabling users to store their digital payment, loyalty, membership and identity cards, digital keys, boarding passes and other credentials on their compatible Samsung Galaxy smartphone... More
Eligible passengers aged 65 and over using Monterey-Salinas Transit (MST) buses in the US state of California will now automatically receive a discount on their fares when they tap to pay for journeys with their debit or credit card using MST’s fare-capped open loop contactless ticketing system without needing to provide any additional proof of eligibility... More
Music fans in the USA can now purchase physical cards similar to gift or trading cards that allow them to listen to songs and albums on their NFC smartphone and add them to an in-app music library by scanning an NFC chip embedded in the card rather than by using streaming services such as Spotify or Apple Music... More
Merchants across the US will soon be able to accept biometric payments authenticated by a customer’s fingerprint using a point-of-sale (POS) solution launched by payment processing provider Green Payments... More
Global payment card shipments will total 3.029bn in 2022, falling slightly from the total of 3.11bn cards shipped during 2021 because of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and ongoing disruption to the global chip supply, according to a forecast by ABI Research... More