Upmarket furniture, interior and lighting design brand Moooi is adding an in-house designed high security NFC tag to all its products to provide customers with a guarantee that they are purchasing an official Moooi product rather than a fake... More
Biometric cards’ ability to enable frictionless customer authentication for higher value contactless transactions will lead to the technology gaining widespread adoption by 2023, Goode Intelligence predicts, with a total of almost 579m biometric payment cards in use around the world in five years’ time... More
Card issuers will no longer need to include a signature panel on the back of Mastercard products, the payments network has announced... More
Apple has issued an apology to Chinese customers who were victims of a phishing scam that saw some Alipay and WeChat Pay customers lose funds stored in their mobile wallets... More
Bank of America unveils new mobile capabilities — Bank of America — “Bank of America today announced that it is introducing a new feature that will allow clients to move seamlessly between the Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Merrill Edge and US Trust mobile apps without having to re-authenticate… The new app-linking feature will be available at Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, and Merrill Edge today and at US Trust in November.”
PARTNER NEWS: HID Global is increasing investment in its NFC-based Trusted Tag brand protection service and expanding its network of solution providers around the world... More
PARTNER NEWS: STMicroelectronics has introduced a new range of dynamic tag chips that combine NFC technology with pulse width modulation (PWM) logic to enable a wide range of appliances to be set up or fine tuned at home, in the field or in the factory using either an NFC phone or an ISO 15693 RFID reader... More
GlobalPlatform simplifies implementation of standardized IoT device security — GlobalPlatform — “GlobalPlatform, the standard for secure digital services and devices, has published a configuration that simplifies the implementation of secure element (SE) specifications for the protection of internet of things (IoT) devices… The configuration supports root of trust (RoT) device identity, the protection of critical assets, state-of-the-art AES cryptography for device management and authentication, allowing automatic enrolment to online cloud services.”
PARTNER NEWS: NXP has launched two new NFC tags that incorporate both product protection and channel authentication security features, enabling brands to take advantage of the tag reading capabilities of both Android and iOS devices to roll out NFC-based customer communication and product authentication services at scale... More
A New York technology company is creating a blockchain-based registry of original art and using NFC tags attached to the works themselves to link the physical items to their digital identities. More
Apple’s just-published iOS 12 security guide has revealed a new feature which will see owners of the latest iPhones able to conduct some NFC transactions even when the device has all but shut down because the battery needs to be charged... More
Google has begun rolling out Android 9 ‘Pie’, the latest version of its mobile operating system which includes support for GlobalPlatform’s Open Mobile API, a new BiometricPrompt API, and added NFC and Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) security techniques... More
Why Apple Pay is the highest-rated mobile P2P payment service — Consumer Reports — “In our first-ever test-based ratings of P2P mobile services, CR rated Apple Pay the highest overall, with excellent or very good marks in the key consumer-protection measures of payment authentication and data privacy. Apple’s overall rating was significantly higher than for the other services we tested: Venmo, Square’s Cash App, Facebook P2P Payments in Messenger, and Zelle.”
Sneaker Con bets NFC will keep fakes off its new shoe-selling app — Engadget — “Every time you buy a pair from the Sneaker Con application, it’ll come with a physical tag attached to the shoes that features NFC. This Legit Tag comes loaded with information about the sneaker you’re getting (including the model name, size, condition and SKU number). To see that, all you have to do is open the Sneaker Con app and tap the authentication tab.”
Chase expands cardless access to 15,000 ATMs nationwide — Chase — “Chase today announced that customers can now get cash through their phone’s mobile wallet at nearly all of its 16,000 ATMs nationwide, as well as access to all ATM vestibules outside of the branch… Customers no longer need a physical debit card or access code for authentication and can simply ‘tap’ their smartphone on the ATM to easily and securely access money on the go.”
KDDI and Hitachi pilot finger vein biometrics for redeeming coupons in stores — KDDI (translation) — “The user can authenticate himself by holding the finger registered on the authentication infrastructure, so it is not necessary to present the coupon at the store, and the coupon can be used even without the smartphone… Since coupon usage information recorded in the blockchain is extremely difficult to tamper with, it is easy to share coupon usage history securely and reliably between KDDI and affiliated stores, and payment according to the number of coupon users is highly accurate.”
PARTNER NEWS: Two thousand HID Trusted Tags have been installed in “one of Manhattan’s most iconic skyscrapers” to improve the security and management of the building’s fire and safety sprinkler system... More
E-commerce giant Alibaba has invested in NFC and RFID specialist Smartrac Technology Group and taken a seat on the company’s board... More
Russia’s multi-bank remote customer identification facility, which has been in beta testing since early 2018, has launched with Know Your Customer (KYC) enrolment points now working at more than 400 banks in 140 cities... More
Better biometrics in Android P — Google — “Starting in Android P, developers can use the BiometricPrompt API to integrate biometric authentication into their apps in a device and biometric agnostic way… A support library is also provided for devices running Android O and earlier, allowing applications to utilize the advantages of this API across more devices.”