The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) and more than 20 other transit agencies that support the Clipper fare payment system in the San Francisco Bay Area of the USA are trialling a contactless transit pass that will allow passengers to take unlimited free journeys on bus, rail and ferry services in the region... More
Rail operator NS in the Netherlands is to pilot a contactless open loop fare payment system that will enable passengers to pay for their train fares by tapping their physical debit or credit card or their digital debit card stored on a smartphone or smartwatch at the beginning and the end of their journey... More
Customers of America First Credit Union (AFCU) in the US states of Utah and Arizona can now use either state’s mobile driving licence (mDL) to securely verify their identity when accessing their financial information and conducting banking transactions at any of the credit union’s 121 branch locations... More
Passengers travelling on public transport services operated by GO Transit, Brampton Transit, MiWay and Oakville Transit in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area of Ontario in Canada can now make contactless fare payments with a tap of their physical or digital credit card, without needing to buy a Presto transit card or e-ticket... More
Nearly one in three of all payments in the UK were made using contactless cards or with a smartphone or smart watch in 2021 (32%), a rise of 36% compared with transaction volumes in 2020, according to figures from UK Finance... More
Apple Pay has launched in Qatar with support for American Express cards and Mastercard and Visa cards issued by seven major banks... More
The proportion of contactless payments made for purchases from vending machines in the US increased from 18% of all transactions in January 2021 to 43% in October 2021, has now reached 48% and “could grow by another 12%” by the end of this year, a new study reveals... More
Merchants in New Zealand can now accept contactless payments on an ordinary Android NFC smartphone using a low-cost software point of sale (sPOS) solution that users will be able to implement without a monthly fee for using the app until January 2024 if transactions are settled to a Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) account... More
Norway, Finland and New Zealand are the three countries closest to becoming cashless societies, followed by Hong Kong, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, the UK, Singapore and the Netherlands, according to research published by Merchant Machine... More
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is to run a series of pilot schemes to test the use of mobile payments technology to enable citizens entitled to financial support under its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to receive benefits and make NFC or QR code payments for eligible purchases on their mobile device... More
Samsung’s new Galaxy Z Fold 4, Galaxy Z Flip 4, Galaxy Watch 5 and Galaxy Watch 5 Pro all offer NFC functionality, while some also include ultra wideband (UWB) capabilities and the phone maker’s own MST magnetic stripe emulation technology... More
Apple Pay has launched in Malaysia with support for Mastercard and Visa cards issued by AmBank, Maybank and Standard Chartered Bank... More
Fans of German football club 1 FC Köln have trialled a team scarf incorporating an NFC chip that can be used instead of a conventional ticket to gain access to the stadium and also enables users to access exclusive real-time digital content during a match... More
Hong Kong’s Fire Services Department is to introduce contactless triage or casualty classification cards containing an NFC chip and a QR code that enable rescue workers to communicate accurate real-time information about the injuries of individuals involved in large-scale accidents to other frontline staff, public hospitals and dispatch centres... More
Residents of Colombia will soon be able to use an updated version of their digital national identity card — known as La Cédula Digital Colombiana — stored on their Apple or Android smartphone as a passport when travelling to eight other South American countries... More
Nike and its digital fashion brand Rtfkt have launched a hoodie incorporating an NFC chip that enables purchasers to connect it to a digital version of the garment in the form of a non-fungible token (NFT) that can be ‘worn’ by digital avatars in Rtfkt’s Clone X avatar ecosystem... More
The number of merchants worldwide using software point of sale (sPOS) solutions to accept contactless payments on an ordinary NFC smartphone or tablet will increase from 6m in 2022 to more than 34.5m by 2027, according to Juniper Research... More
Residents across France will soon be able to download and store a digital version of their Carte Vitale health insurance card on their Apple or Android smartphone using the ApCV app currently being piloted in 10 French departments... More
Residents of Finland could be the first in the European Union to test the use of a digital passport stored on their mobile phone to verify their identity when they travel abroad, according to media reports... More
Customers of Intesa Sanpaolo bank in Italy with a compatible smartphone can now digitise and add their PagoBancomat payment card to a Huawei Pay digital wallet and use it to make in-store NFC mobile payments... More