Bank-led payment service Digicash has expanded its QR-based mobile payments platform to include new POS beacons that support NFC, QR and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) — “automatically providing the customer with the best user experience based on the features of his smartphone.”... More
MeaWallet, a white label solution that supports mobile payments via NFC, Bluetooth LE, host card emulation (HCE), QR and more, is to be launched in May this year, enabling retailers, banks, MNOs and service providers to support a wide range of options for making mobile purchases in stores ... More
Spain’s Banco Sabadell is using a host card emulation (HCE) solution provided by Carta Worldwide for the NFC payments technology trial it is conducting in partnership with MasterCard... More
Alpha Bank and Vodafone have partnered with Visa and First Data to conduct the first NFC payments pilot in Greece... More
The Royal Canadian Mint is piloting its MintChip digital currency in the cafeterias at its Ottawa and Winnipeg facilities — and is using NFC technology to enable employees to make purchases with the Bitcoin alternative... More
NFC World’s “Tap to Pass: NFC for Access Control” webinar, featuring the latest consumer and administrator insights from multiple field trials, is now available to view online... More
MasterCard is to publish a new specification during the first half of 2014 that uses host card emulation (HCE) for NFC mobile payments — avoiding the need to have access to a secure element on a customer’s mobile phone — and is already testing the technology with Spain’s Banco Sabadell and Capital One in the US... More
Hong Kong prepaid card provider Octopus has partnered with Chinese online giant Alibaba’s Taobao ecommerce platform and Alipay mobile payments service to let customers make secure online purchases using a combination of contactless cards, QR codes and NFC phones. More
Mobile network operator Orange is to commercially launch NFC ticketing services in the Spanish cities of Malaga and Valencia in the coming months, following successful pilot phases that have been underway in Malaga since February 2012... More
The NFC mobile wallet being tested by Hungarian carriers Magyar Telekom, Vodafone and Telenor with MasterCard, OTP Bank and loyalty scheme operator SuperShop is expanding its range of services to include ticketing for live events and access to sports facilities... More
Isis is offering 15,000 Wells Fargo credit card holders a 20% credit on purchases and a US$20 statement credit if they sign up and make use of its NFC payments service... More
UK retail chain Argos is conducting an NFC pilot in 40 of its stores, enabling shoppers to tap their NFC smartphones to engage with store staff wearing NFC-enabled lanyards and have the latest offers sent to their device... More
The NFC payments pilot in the Dutch city of Leiden has proved successful in terms of both consumer and merchant uptake, partners Rabobank, ING and ABN Amro report — and Rabobank is now set to commercially launch an NFC mobile wallet during the second quarter of 2014... More
Russian premium supermarket chain Land is piloting personalised NFC shopping using technology developed by Synqera, which combines ‘Loyalty Generator’ coupon dispensers at the front of the store and NFC-enabled Simplate payment devices at the checkout. More
US bank Wells Fargo and Isis have announced the first phase of an agreement that will see customers with a Wells Fargo Visa credit card and an Isis NFC phone being able to load their card into their Isis Mobile Wallet and make purchases at merchants across the US... More
London branches of Tesco-owned restaurant chain Giraffe have begun offering customers daily giveaways through NFC table tents as part of an online advent calendar campaign... More
NFC is to be included in 100,000 tabletop tablets that are to be installed in US casual dining restaurant chain Applebee’s 1,800 locations... More
Eight out of ten testers of the Hungarian mobile wallet pilot project have found the service “very useful” prompting the Hungarian Mobile Wallet Association — an alliance between mobile network operators Magyar Telekom, Vodafone and Telenor with MasterCard, OTP Bank and SuperShop — to declare the MobilTarca wallet ready for market... More
Dutch bank Rabobank is set to commercially launch an NFC mobile payments service in the Netherlands next year... More
Consumer finance provider GE Capital has partnered with mobile network operator 2degrees to conduct an NFC payments pilot in New Zealand... More