Merchants in the USA including fashion retailers Vince, Burton, G-Star and Scotch & Soda have begun enabling staff to accept in-store contactless payments on iPhones using Apple’s Tap to Pay software point of sale (sPOS) feature... More
US-based cosmetics brand Too Faced has added NFC tags to 100,000 samples of its Maximum Plump lip gloss, enabling recipients to access a special landing page and register for a discount on future purchases by scanning the tag with their Apple or Android NFC smartphone... More
More than nine in ten public transport users worldwide expect transit services to offer contactless fare payment options (91%) and just under half prefer to make contactless payments for their transit fares (45%), according to Visa’s 2022 Future of Urban mobility survey... More
An international team of researchers has developed flexible NFC extenders that enable the wearer to interact with NFC tags at a greater distance than has previously been possible, opening up the potential for hands-free NFC interactions in use cases ranging from exchanging contact details at a distance, entering a building while carrying shopping bags and accessing online instructions while carrying out physical exercise... More
Apple CarPlay users will soon be able to activate fuel station pumps and make contactless in-car payments directly from their vehicle’s navigation and infotainment screen using third-party fuelling apps... More
Delta Air Lines passengers in the USA can now apply for a contactless credit card which is the first to have been made using recycled aircraft metal... More
Meta is planning to develop a digital wallet that will enable consumers to purchase digital items such as digital clothing and music, confirm proof of ownership and manage their identity when accessing future metaverse services, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has revealed in a Facebook post... More
The number of checkout-free contactless stores around the world increased from 87 in 2020 to 252 in 2021 and will rise by more than 90% a year to exceed 12,000 by the end of 2027, according to Retail Banking Research (RBR)... More
Samsung Galaxy users in the USA, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK can now store their digital payment, loyalty and membership cards as well as digital keys, boarding passes and Covid-19 vaccination certificates on their smartphone using the Samsung Wallet app... More
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
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
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 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
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
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
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
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
The total number of payments in the USA made using cash fell from just over one in four in 2019 (26%) to under one in five in 2020 (19%) before increasing slightly to 20% in 2021, the Federal Reserve reports... More
More than one in two consumers worldwide prefer using a physical payment card to using cash or a digital wallet when making in-person purchases (53%), a survey has revealed... More
Apple has begun testing its Tap to Pay software point of sale (sPOS) feature that enables merchants to accept contactless payments directly on their iPhone at its Apple Park Visitor Center in Cupertino in the US state of California... More