After fifteen years of reporting week in, week out on the latest NFC and contactless news, the NFCW team was forced to take a health break in January — but we’re now back with renewed vigor and new plans to dig deep into the latest trends and technologies... More
French brand Bastille Parfums has added RFID tags and QR codes to bottles of its luxury perfumes to enhance supply chain traceability, product tracking, fraud prevention and customer engagement by linking individual products to a unique cloud-based digital twin... More
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has completed the first phase of Project e-HKD to develop a digital Hong Kong dollar and in the process has identified three use cases where the adoption of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) could facilitate faster, more cost-effective and inclusive payments and enable new types of economic transactions... More
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has successfully tested an end-to-end digital ID proof-of-concept (PoC) that enables air travellers to use biometric digital credentials to verify their identity at every stage of their journey – from purchasing a ticket to arriving at their destination... More
The European Payments Initiative (EPI) will launch its pan-European digital wallet for use on both iOS and Android devices under the commercial name of Wero, the initiative has revealed... More
US burger and shakes chain Steak ’n Shake is to make use of face biometrics for both payments and rewards at self-ordering kiosks at 300 of its US outlets, beginning in Orlando, Florida... More
It will soon be possible for consumers to make contactless transactions with their NFC smartphone from a distance of 3-4cms, a significant increase on the current standard of 2cm, NFC Forum executive director Mike McCamon has revealed in a presentation for Contactless World Congress... More
Google Wallet is to gain support for a wide variety of new types of contactless credentials, including health insurance cards and employee ID badges, and is also expanding its support for mobile driver’s licenses, state IDs and transit passes, general manager Jenny Cheng has announced... More
Customers at Pho Banh Mi Che Cali restaurants in Los Angeles in the US can now opt to pay for their orders with either their face or their palm using a biometric payments acceptance system... More
The European Payments Initiative (EPI) is to begin piloting a digital wallet that will enable users to make instant person-to-person (P2P) payments in Germany and France as a first step towards rolling out a unified payment system that will support “a comprehensive range of transaction types” across Europe... More
The World Expo 2025 in the Japanese city of Osaka will be the first world’s fair to be entirely cashless and is developing a dedicated blockchain-enabled Expo Digital Wallet that visitors will be able to use to make contactless payments with their smartphone both inside and outside the venue as well as after the event... More
Bus, taxi and private hire car drivers as well as school bus attendants in Singapore can now add a digital version of their vocational licence to the country’s Singpass app on their smartphone and use it to verify their identity and licence status, gain access to restricted areas and earn loyalty points when purchasing fuel... More
Google Wallet has launched in Japan, enabling users to store and use their credit, debit, transit and loyalty cards, boarding passes, tickets and other digital credentials on their Android NFC smartphone or Wear OS smartwatch... More
Customers at Panera Bread outlets in St Louis, Missouri, in the USA can now opt to access their loyalty account and make contactless payments for their purchases with their palm... More
UK bank NatWest is trialling a ‘reverse vending machine’ that enables consumers to securely recycle unwanted plastic payment, gift and loyalty cards as well as card readers and plastic bottles at locations across London... More
The number of credit cards issued via digital card issuance platforms worldwide will rise from 120m in 2023 to more than 320m by 2027, according to a Juniper Research forecast... More
Samsung Wallet will soon go live in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan, enabling users to store and use digital payment, loyalty, membership and identity cards, digital keys, boarding passes and other credentials on their compatible Samsung Galaxy smartphone... More
Gamblers visiting Resorts World Las Vegas can now register, verify their identity, join a loyalty program and upload funds to a dedicated digital wallet before they arrive at the resort, and will no longer have to confirm their identity with casino staff prior to purchasing gambling chips and placing contactless cashless bets at slot machines directly from their smartphone... More
NFCW will be bringing together senior executives and technical specialists from across the contactless payments ecosystem on 24-26 January for the Contactless Payments Summit, part of our Contactless World Congress series of online events... More
Samsung Wallet has gone live in Qatar and South Africa, enabling users to store and use their digital payment, loyalty, membership and identity cards, digital keys, boarding passes and other credentials on their compatible Samsung Galaxy smartphone... More