A group of seven mobile payments service providers with a combined user base of 25 million people in nine European countries have formed a new association to deliver “interoperability of the mobile payment systems across national borders”... More
A team of researchers from universities in the UK and China have developed a way to use standard machine embroidering equipment to add NFC capabilities to items of clothing so that the technology continues to work reliably even when the fabric is stretched out of shape by the wearer. More
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) is preparing to launch a central bank-backed digital currency on 11 November, according to a Forbes report — and is to kickstart usage by distributing it to UnionPay, Tencent, Alibaba and several Chinese banks in time for consumers to use it on Singles Day, the country’s busiest shopping day... More
The government of Sierra Leone is to introduce a blockchain-based national identity system at the end of this year, enabling citizens to “grant access to approved institutions to assert and verify identity and also build credit histories,” the country’s president has announced. More
The UK government is to introduce an iOS version of its NFC-based EU Exit: ID Document Check app in October, the Home Office has told The Register... More
Keep up to date: Get NFCW's headlines by email every Wednesday
NFC World is today rebranding as NFCW, moving to a new home at www.nfcw.com and switching on a new site design that lets readers easily access specialist news and knowledge on topics of particular interest, beginning with payments, transit ticketing and NFC technology... 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
Finnish carrier Telia is working with OP Bank to test the viability of using a high speed 5G network to deliver face recognition payments to merchants operating in locations without a fixed line connection... More
Lojas Americanas, Brazil’s largest retailer, has opened the first of a series of Ame Go convenience stores that use a combination of smart shelf sensors, overhead cameras and QR-enabled entry and exit barriers to remove the need to install physical checkout stations... 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
WhatsApp in talks to launch mobile payments in Indonesia — sources — Reuters — “Unlike in India where it plans to offer direct peer-to-peer payment services, WhatsApp will simply serve as a platform in Indonesia supporting payments via local digital wallets due to tough licensing regulations… The Indonesia model could become a template for WhatsApp to adopt in other emerging markets to get around regulations on foreign players creating their own digital wallets, the sources said.”
Indonesia’s central bank says it has now completed the development of QRIS, an EMV-compliant national QR Code Indonesian Standard for mobile payments... More
Keep up to date: Get NFCW's headlines by email every Wednesday
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
Barclays has opened an online store which will offer users of its Pingit mobile payments service a wide range of wearable payments devices, including watches, jewellery, wristbands and key fobs. More
China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines are introducing NFC-enabled electronic baggage tags that let passengers check in their own luggage and then track its location on their mobile phones, China Daily reports... More
Trentino Trasporti, the transportation operator for the Italian city of Trento, is to be the first to pilot a new transit ticketing concept that uses sensors placed on trains to calculate and charge passengers for fares by automatically detecting when they get on and off a particular service. More
Co-working space provider All Work & Social has signed up as the launch partner for a biometric payments system that uses the pattern of veins in a customer’s fingertip to replace the need to carry a card, phone or cash... More
More than 170,000 journeys have been made using Metrolink’s new contactless payment system in the four weeks since the service launched on 15 July, Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) has revealed... More
EMVCo is to add support for eight-digit Issuer Identification Numbers (IINs) in 2021, with the result that “point of sale terminals may need to be updated to ensure they recognise and have the ability to process both existing and longer IINs, or transactions may be terminated or processed incorrectly”. 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