PARTNER NEWS: Saudi Arabia’s Riyad Bank is migrating its entire portfolio to digital security giant Gemalto’s Clarista Contactless EMV card — powered by the industry-standard Multos operating system — making it the country’s first contactless payment method... More
India’s Axis Bank has launched Lime, a mobile wallet that combines banking, shopping and payment services and lets customers make in-store purchases using an encrypted audio signal generated by their device... More
A 34-page white paper that addresses key security questions relating to cloud-based payments, tokenization and host card emulation (HCE) technology is now available to download from the NFC World Knowledge Centre.... More
Hong Kong mobile network operator SmarTone has unveiled Kissco, an end-to-end mobile marketing platform incorporating Kiss Pay, a mobile payments service based on NFC and ultrasound technology, a Kiss Dollars loyalty program and Kiss Beacons to allow retailers to send out offers and promotions directly to customers’ smartphones from their stores... More
Apple has filed a US patent application for a payments service that would enable peer-to-peer money transfers via NFC and Bluetooth... More
The NFC Forum has released a new candidate specification that extends the functionality of NFC devices to include formal support for a new category of NFC tag... More
EMV payments on plastic cards won’t achieve broad adoption in the US until 2020, Forrester Research predicts, due to the rise of “more secure” mobile and contactless payment alternatives... More
A total of 4.7bn SIMs were shipped in 2014 by members of the SIMalliance, an organisation that represents suppliers responsible for 86% of the global SIM market, including 132m NFC SIMs, up 69% on 2013 and taking the total number of NFC SIMs shipped by alliance members over the past four years to 256m. More
Italian jewellery brand Bulgari will enter the luxury smartwatch market next year when it launches the NFC-enabled Diagono Magnesium watch – allowing users to make contactless payments, access personal data, as well as unlocking doors at home, at work, or on their own car or yacht... More
A US startup is taking pre-orders for a biometrically secured mobile wallet, consisting of a payment app and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)-based “bio-sticker” attached to the back of the user’s phone... More
“It’s all about the wallet,” Apple CEO Tim Cook explained during the unveiling of Apple Pay mobile payments and the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch with NFC on 9 September... More
Chip maker Broadcom has introduced Wiced Sense, a developer kit designed “to enable developers to rapidly prototype ideas and concepts for IoT devices and applications.”... More
Chinese online payments giant Alipay is working with Huawei to enable users of the phone maker’s new Ascend Mate 7 handset to secure their mobile payments using a fingerprint sensor built into the phone... More
UK-based startup Tap2Tag has introduced a range of NFC wristbands, key fobs, cards and stickers that can be used to instantly retrieve a person’s medical history and associated information in an emergency... More
Zimbabwe-based banking solutions provider Edgetech Solutions is preparing to launch a new mobile payment service that uses sound-based communication technology from NearBytes to let people make payments in stores with their phones... More
Banking and payments technology provider FIS has launched a cloud-based service that lets banks instantly issue EMV ‘chip and pin’ or magnetic stripe cards to customers in their branches... More
Inside Secure has bought software obfuscation and encryption specialist Metaforic... More
Wirecard has integrated support for host card emulation (HCE) into its mobile wallet platform, “enabling telecommunications companies, financial service providers, banks and also retailers to quickly enter the mobile payment market through near field communication.”... More
The Galaxy S5, Samsung’s new flagship smartphone, includes biometric security as well as NFC — and can be used to make payments at any merchant that accepts PayPal online or in store... More
A newly published Apple patent application uses a secure element in a mobile phone to store cardholder data, NFC to initiate a transaction and Bluetooth or WiFi to complete the processing of a transaction and return coupons and other information to the customer’s device... More