Up to 170,000 California residents are set to take part in a pilot of a digital driving licence that they will be able to use to prove their age when making purchases at convenience stores in the US state from late summer 2023... More
Archive: Contactless
Auckland Transport to roll out open loop contactless payments ‘within the next 12 months’
Public transportation users in Auckland, New Zealand, will be able to pay their bus, train and ferry fares using a contactless debit/credit card, Apple Pay or Google Pay “within the next 12 months”, the city’s transport authority has announced. ... More
European Commission to release technical specification for EU digital identity wallet ‘in two weeks’
The technical specification for the proposed EU Digital Identity (EUDI) wallet will be available “in two weeks”, Robert Viola, director general of the European Commission’s digital economy directorate, has revealed... More
Department of Homeland Security issues call for digital wallet proposals
The US Department of Homeland Security’s Science & Technology Directorate has issued a call for applications from technology providers for ‘Privacy Preserving Digital Credential Wallets & Verifiers (Digital Wallets)’... More
LVMH to bring Tap to Pay on iPhone to US stores
LVMH Group is to equip staff at its Sephora, Christian Dior Couture, Celine, Tiffany & Co and Louis Vuitton stores in the US with iPhones that use Apple’s Tap to Pay softPOS solution from “later this year”. More
Contactless cards accounted for 84% of all global card shipments in 2022
Contactless cards accounted for 84% of the 2.6bn smart cards and modules delivered worldwide by SPA members and advisory council participants in 2022, the Smart Payment Association reports, an increase of 8% on the 76% share in 2021... More
Cantaloupe reports ‘rapid growth’ in contactless payments at vending machines in the US and Canada
EMV payments grew by more than 350% as a share of cashless sales at food and beverage vending machines in the US and Canada in 2022, an analysis of a sample set of almost 675,000 active card readers has found. ... More
The Netherlands completes rollout of OVpay national contactless ticketing system
Public transportation users in the Netherlands can now make use of a single, national, integrated contactless ticketing system to pay for their train, bus, tram and metro fares throughout the country, with no need to pre-purchase a ticket or top up a travel card... More
Apple unveils Tap to Present ID API that will let businesses use standard iPhones to verify customer IDs
Apple has built on the technology it developed for its Tap to Pay on iPhone softPOS solution to introduce a new Tap to Present ID API that will let both government organisations and private businesses use a standard iPhone to verify a customer or service user’s age, identity, address and/or driving licence status... More
Google Wallet goes live in five new countries
Google Wallet is now available in Argentina, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Montenegro, bringing the total number of countries where the digital wallet is available to 66. More
Delhi Metro reports on passenger uptake of QR paper tickets
Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has sold more than 7.4m QR paper tickets since introducing the new ticketing option on 8 May, the transportation operator has revealed. More
Seven-Eleven stores in Japan to let consumers access ATM services via face biometrics
Seven Bank, a division of Seven-Eleven Japan’s parent company Seven & i Holdings, is to let consumers use face biometrics to deposit and withdraw cash and perform banking services at 20,000 ATMs in Seven-Eleven stores across Japan. More
Apple picks iris biometrics for Vision Pro virtual reality headset user authentication
Apple has integrated a secure enclave into its new Vision Pro virtual reality headset that supports Optic ID, “a new secure authentication system that analyses a user’s iris under various invisible LED light exposures”... More
Maryland becomes first US state to make mobile IDs available to both Apple and Google wallet users
The Maryland Department of Transportation Motor Vehicle Administration has rolled out support for Maryland Mobile ID in Google Wallet following a successful beta test that began in December 2022 and the launch of Mobile ID in Apple Wallet in May 2022... More
Coors Field combines age verification with biometric payments for baseball fans buying alcoholic beverages
Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies Major League Baseball (MLB) team, has become the first sports venue to use a new version of Amazon’s palm biometric payments solution that removes the need for bar staff to manually check whether a customer purchasing alcohol is over 21... More
Convenience store in Finland offers automated contactless shopping using RFID tags
Residents of a small village in rural Finland now have access to an unstaffed automated contactless convenience store that uses RAIN RFID tags attached to each item to let shoppers quickly and easily self-checkout using a POS solution equipped with an RFID reader that automatically scans all the items in their basket. ... More
Sixteen banks, payments and technology firms to pilot digital Hong Kong dollar
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has officially launched six first-round pilots of a digital Hong Kong dollar or e-HKD with support from 16 banks, payments and technology firms to test the prototype central bank digital currency (CBDC) across a range of use cases including in-store, online and offline payments... More
Swiss football club launches NFC scarves that let fans into the stadium on match day
Fans of Swiss football club FC St Gallen can now use a team scarf incorporating an NFC tag instead of a physical or digital season ticket to gain access to the stadium and receive benefits and notifications... More
Bengaluru to introduce QR code-based auto-rickshaw complaints service
Passengers wishing to file a complaint against an auto-rickshaw driver in the Indian city of Bengaluru will soon be able to do so by simply scanning a QR code behind the driver’s seat with their smartphone... More