E-scooter manufacturer Varla has upgraded the NFC-enabled anti-theft system on its Eagle One Pro vehicle to enable owners to lock and unlock it using a digital version of their contactless key card stored on their NFC smartphone... More
The number of stores worldwide that enable customers to self-scan their purchases on their own smartphone or a device provided by the merchant rose by 10,000 during 2021 to reach a total of 46,000, but that total is set to more than triple and exceed 161,000 globally by 2027, according to Retail Banking Research (RBR)... More
More than eight in ten consumers have used “an NFC contactless card or mobile payment wallet” (85%) and contactless payment card usage has increased by 30% over the past two years, according to a survey of consumers in nine countries around the world that has been conducted for the NFC Forum... More
Passengers travelling on the Metrolink tram network in the UK city of Manchester can no longer purchase a one-day travel pass on Transport for Greater Manchester’s Get Me There mobile ticketing app and are instead being encouraged to use the network’s open loop contactless fare payment system that incorporates daily and weekly fare capping... More
Football fans in Mexico can now make contactless payments from a stored-value digital wallet to buy Corona beer at selected matches at Mexico City’s Azteca Stadium using an NFC chip attached to the inside of a soccer jersey... More
PARTNER NEWS: Dejamobile has become the first software-only contactless POS solution provider to be certified by French bank card association Groupement des Cartes Bancaires (CB), opening the way for merchants to begin piloting the technology for contactless CB card payments acceptance... More
Passengers travelling on flights operated by Alaska Airlines will be among the first in the US to be able to transfer their flight details to an NFC-enabled electronic bag tag attached to their checked luggage by tapping their NFC smartphone on the device, avoiding the need to print a physical tag when they arrive at the airport... More
Just over a third of UK consumers now have a digital wallet (34%), but that proportion rises to more than two thirds among 18-34 year olds (64%) compared with just 18% among 54-65 year olds, a survey has found... More
More than 500,000 students at 100 higher education facilities across the USA have now added an NFC-enabled digital campus card to Apple Wallet or Google Pay on their NFC smartphone or smartwatch, according to campus card provider Transact... More
Computer users will soon be able to charge a cable-free mouse using NFC simply by placing it on an NFC wireless charging mouse mat... More
Google has begun rolling out a multipurpose digital wallet that enables users to store, use and present digital credentials such as identity cards and health passes as well as payment cards, transit and event tickets and hotel keys in 39 countries across Europe, the Americas and Asia... More
US-based tequila brand Otaca is to add NFC tags that enable purchasers to authenticate their purchase, access information about the brand and place further orders by tapping the tag in the bottle cap with their Apple or Android NFC device to more than 50,000 bottles of its Reposado tequila... More
US law firm Hagens Berman has filed a class action lawsuit against Apple alleging that, by preventing mobile wallets other than Apple Pay using the NFC chip in iPhone and Apple Watch to enable contactless payments, the company is in breach of federal antitrust law... More
Luxury perfume brand Byredo is to let collectors create a customised scent in the form of a non-fungible token (NFT) using digital ingredients that will then be produced as a limited edition physical perfume and supplied in individually numbered bottles with an NFC tag that connects to the NFT... More
Food cart service provider FrostHead has provided its sellers at the Lollapalooza outdoor music festival in Sweden with the ability to accept contactless payments for food, drinks and earplugs using a software application that they can download onto a standard Android NFC smartphone... More
Merchants in the USA including fashion retailers Vince, Burton, G-Star and Scotch & Soda have begun enabling staff to accept in-store contactless payments on iPhones using Apple’s Tap to Pay software point of sale (sPOS) feature... More
US-based cosmetics brand Too Faced has added NFC tags to 100,000 samples of its Maximum Plump lip gloss, enabling recipients to access a special landing page and register for a discount on future purchases by scanning the tag with their Apple or Android NFC smartphone... More
More than nine in ten public transport users worldwide expect transit services to offer contactless fare payment options (91%) and just under half prefer to make contactless payments for their transit fares (45%), according to Visa’s 2022 Future of Urban mobility survey... More
The Covid-19 pandemic has driven a “global surge” in digital payments with two-thirds of adults worldwide now making or receiving digital payments, rising from 35% in 2014 to 57% in 2021 in developing economies and from 88% in 2014 to 95% in 2021 in high-income economies, according to the World Bank’s Global Findex 2021 database... More
An international team of researchers has developed flexible NFC extenders that enable the wearer to interact with NFC tags at a greater distance than has previously been possible, opening up the potential for hands-free NFC interactions in use cases ranging from exchanging contact details at a distance, entering a building while carrying shopping bags and accessing online instructions while carrying out physical exercise... More