The first pilots of the US mobile operators’ NFC payments program in Salt Lake City and Austin, Texas will not go ahead on schedule and no new date for the launch has yet been set, says Isis. More
USA
Thinaire expands NFC platform
US-based NFC marketing specialist Thinaire has launched the Thinaire Enterprise Suite, an NFC marketing platform that combines NFC tags, analytics, and integration with existing CRM, social media and database platforms... More
Google discontinues Prepaid Card
The Google Prepaid Card service will end on 17 October, Google has announced, due to the arrival of the new Google Wallet 2.0 NFC service... More
LevelUp adds NFC to zero transaction fee merchant marketing platform
The Google Ventures-backed service has introduced a new POS terminal that supports NFC as well as mobile barcodes and is available free of charge and with no transaction fees to merchants that participate in its payments and marketing programme. More
HID launches employee ID platform that works with badges, tokens and NFC phones
“For the first time, customers will be able to provision and manage credentials over the air with the same ease and simplicity as downloading a song from a cloud-based music service,” says the employee ID giant. More
Isis NFC phones appear on MasterCard list
A number of NFC phones marked as approved for use by the three mobile network operator partners in NFC venture Isis have appeared on MasterCard’s list of approved mobile devices, adding to speculation that Isis is close to launching its pilots in Salt Lake City and Austin, Texas... More
DeviceFidelity upgrades Moneto NFC service
A number of improvements have been announced for Moneto, the DeviceFidelity microSD-based payments service that lets any US consumers add NFC functionality to their iPhone or Android device:... More
Isis to go live in September?
US NFC venture Isis is on course to go live in September, narrowly managing to meet its planned launch date of “this summer”, according to Bloomberg, which says that Verifone CEO Doug Bergeron revealed the timing in an interview... More
Google: Isis model “not scaleable”
“There are 8,500 issuers in the US and literally it will take them a lifetime to actually work through negotiations with all these issuers,” Google Wallet’s Robin Dua has told developers during an online Q&A session on its recent move to a cloud-based approach to card provisioning. More
Discover signs up for Google Wallet
Cardholders will be able to add their Discover cards to Google Wallet using a simple “click-to-add” process, via the card issuer’s online account centre, their Google account online or the Google Wallet app on their Android NFC phone. More
US retailers move into the mobile wallet market
Walmart, Target, 7-Eleven, Best Buy, Publix, Sears, Shell and Sunoco are amongst a dozen major merchants that have formed a new company called Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) that will provide an alternative to services like Isis and Google Wallet. More
Discover certifies First Data TSM
First Data has announced that its trusted service management (TSM) solution has been qualified by Discover... More
Fime to certify Isis devices
Fime has become the first company to be authorised by Isis to certify products, including mobile handsets and secure elements, for the US NFC venture... More
Google Wallet 2.0: The easy way to pay with NFC?
Google has unveiled a new version of its Google Wallet service that avoids the requirement for individual payment cards to be loaded onto a secure element. Instead, a prepaid MasterCard which draws funds from linked credit and debit cards is pre-loaded onto the secure element. More
Isis adds fuel retailers to merchant line-up
Pay-at-pump technology providers Gilbarco Veeder-Root and GE-owned Wayne have agreed to build Isis’s SmartTap technology into their fuel dispensers, ahead of the NFC joint venture’s first pilots in Austin and Salt Lake City. More
Isis releases video tutorials
The US NFC payments venture has produced a series of educational videos, designed to show consumers how to use the Isis Mobile Wallet in stores and how to add cards and offers, as it moves towards pilot launches in Austin and Salt Lake City. More
Google Wallet takes New Yorkers to the beach
Google is promoting adoption of its Google Wallet service in the New York area with the offer of a free trip to the beach this weekend... More
University of San Francisco to extend NFC campus card service
An NFC solution that integrates fully with the university’s existing campus card system to enable students to access rooms and make laundry payments has been hailed as “a first-rate experience for our students and our staff” and is now to be expanded. More
Tyfone signs up US credit unions and Indonesian partner
NFC-on-microSD specialist Tyfone is to supply mobile banking solutions, including its NFC payments technology, to two US credit unions... More
Jersey Mike’s loyalty launch shows regional differences in consumer acceptance of NFC
More than 200,000 of the sandwich chain’s customers have signed up for a loyalty program that offers both NFC tags and barcode-based ID. In southern California many outlets have seen almost half their customers choose to use the tags while those in other regions are only moving to mobile contactless as they become more familiar with the technology. More