The number of UK contactless payments has risen 18% in just one month to almost 20 million transactions in May 2014, Visa Europe has revealed... More
- Bank of China lets taxi drivers accept central bank digital currency payments on NFC mobile phones
- Juniper forecasts 25% increase in POS terminal transaction values by 2028
- STMicroelectronics launches NFC tag chip with elliptic curve cryptography
- NFC Forum survey finds majority of consumers now prefer making payments with their mobile phone
- Hello, NFCW readers!
Two hundred US shopping malls to use BLE beacons for shopper marketing
More than 200 US shopping malls are to be equipped with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons by early 2015 as a result of an expanded agreement between retail real estate owner Simon and location-based mobile solutions provider Mobiquity. More
GameStop deploys BLE in stores
Video game retailer GameStop is deploying Shelfbucks beacons in test markets including Austin and College Station, Texas this month to deliver offers and relevant data to a shopper’s smartphone running a mobile app developed by BestFit Mobile... More
GSMA publishes mobile money paper
The GSMA has published a discussion paper on how increased smartphone adoption in the developing world will impact the global mobile money industry... More
BLE guides the blind at SFO
Visually-impaired travellers at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) are now being guided through terminals via Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons supplied by Indoo.rs... More
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Analysts report on Apple/Visa partnership
“We think a partnership between Apple and Visa would make strategic sense and believe an announcement could happen as early as this fall,” a team of Pacific Crest Securities analysts has concluded in a new report that follows reports suggesting that two are in talks on mobile payments... More
US merchant groups call for creation of open tokenization standards
Leading merchant groups in the US have come together to call for the creation of an alternative set of open standards for tokenized payments that would be managed by an independent body such as ISO or ANSI — rather than by the payments industry. More
Facebook closes gifts business
Facebook is to close down its gifts service on August 12, Techcrunch reports... More
Amazon Wallet teams up with Blackhawk
Amazon is working with prepaid specialist Blackhawk Network on its new Amazon Wallet service, which lets Android and Fire users store gift cards and loyalty cards on their mobile phone... More
Square unveils EMV card reader
Mobile POS provider Square is to introduce a new card reader that can be used to process both EMV chip card and magnetic stripe card payments... More
Nestle runs NFC marketing campaign in 480 Woolworth stores across Australia
Shelf banners equipped with NFC tags have been placed in Woolworths supermarkets across Australia to promote food giant Nestle’s new Oats and Strawberries breakfast cereal. More
American Express tests HCE for NFC payments
American Express is working with Croatia’s Privredna Banka Zagreb (PBZ), part of the Italy-based Intesa Sanpaolo banking group, to pilot an NFC payments service that makes use of host card emulation (HCE) technology. More
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Hilton to let guests unlock their doors with smartphones
Hotel chain Hilton Worldwide has announced a plan to enable guests to use their smartphones as keys at the majority of its properties around the world. More
HBC deploys iBeacons in Hudson’s Bay and Lord & Taylor department stores across the US and Canada
HBC Department Store Group has begun using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons placed around its Hudson’s Bay and Lord & Taylor department stores in Canada and the US “to deliver digital experiences to consumers’ smartphones while they shop”. More
NXP CEO: NFC secure elements will continue to see strong demand
“We feel very comfortable with the strength of the secure element,” NXP Semiconductors CEO Rick Clemmer has told analysts during the chip maker’s second quarter earnings call. More
Vodafone Italia pilots smart shopping posters
Vodafone Italia is working with high-end Italian food market chain Eataly on a pilot project that lets 2,500 staff tap their NFC phone or scan a QR code on a smart poster to order and pay for groceries that are then delivered to their home or office... More
Pepsi tests NFC for shopper marketing
Pepsi has tested a new NFC shopper marketing solution developed by logistics optimisation solutions provider Rehrig Pacific that uses NFC chips and QR codes on display trays to “increase the opportunity for consumer interaction, at the point of sale, without increased merchandising or delivery costs”... More
Interest in mobile payments grows
Some 53% of consumers globally report they have either used or are interested in redeeming offers and coupons with their phones, while 44% have used or are interested using their mobile device to pay for things in stores and restaurants, according to new research from Ovum... More
Zuckerberg: Facebook is working on payments but it will take time to get it right
Facebook is looking into the potential of adding payments capabilities across its business, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has explained during the company’s first earnings call following the hiring of PayPal boss David Marcus to head its messaging business — but the company won’t rush into the market and expects to take several years to fully develop its offering. More
Starbucks now processes six million mobile payments a week
Coffee chain giant Starbucks now has 12 million active users of its mobile app in the US and Canada alone. Customers make six million mobile payments a week — representing more than 15% of all transactions in its US stores — and the company is pursuing a range of opportunities to expand the potential of its mobile payments platform, CEO Howard Schultz has revealed. More