School students aged 13 to 16 in Northern Ireland can now create and store a digital travelcard on their smartphone that they can use to purchase reduced fare bus and train tickets and prove their age to public transport staff... More
Fans of the Philadelphia Phillies Major League Baseball team in the US can now sign up to test a hands-free biometric ticketing system at Citizens Bank Park that enables them to gain access to home games at the stadium with their face... More
The US Department of Homeland Security’s Science & Technology Directorate has issued a call for applications from technology providers for ‘Privacy Preserving Digital Credential Wallets & Verifiers (Digital Wallets)’... More
The US state of Utah is to launch a pilot programme that will test the use of blockchain technology for the issuance of digital identity cards and other digital credentials that can be stored and used on a holder’s smartphone or other mobile device... More
More than four in ten transit passengers worldwide say that tapping their own debit or credit card to make open loop contactless fare payments is their preferred fare payment option (42%), followed by tapping a card stored in their mobile wallet (39%), using a closed loop transit card (38%), cash (31%) and app-based payment (29%), according to a Visa survey... More
The European Union’s Industry, Research and Energy Committee has approved a proposed update to the European Digital Identity Framework that will enable the issuance and usage of the EU’s European Digital Identity Wallet and enable EU citizens to store digital identity credentials on their smartphone... More
Mastercard has launched the first contactless payment cards to incorporate enhanced quantum-resistant security features compliant with EMVCo’s newly released EMV Contactless Kernel Specification... More
Samsung Galaxy users in the USA, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK can now store their digital payment, loyalty and membership cards as well as digital keys, boarding passes and Covid-19 vaccination certificates on their smartphone using the Samsung Wallet app... More
EMVCo has released a draft specification for the contactless kernels used in payment acceptance devices to process contactless transactions and has made it available for public review... More
The European Commission has sent an official statement of objections to Apple laying out the reasons why it believes the company has “abused its dominant position in markets for mobile wallets on iOS devices” and is restricting competition by limiting third-party access to its NFC chip technology... More
The European Commission is expected to file antitrust charges against Apple over the company’s limitation of access to its NFC chip technology and mobile payment system next week, “four people with direct knowledge of the matter” have told the Financial Times... More
The European Commission has launched a targeted consultation on the expected impact of a digital euro on key industries, institutions, consumers, merchants and other stakeholders in international trade... More
The UK government is to set up an Office for Digital Identities and Attributes (ODIA) and introduce legislation establishing an accreditation process for organisations handling identity data and making digital IDs “as trusted and secure as official documents such as passports and driving licences”... More
The Digital Identity Working Group (DIWG), made up of digital identity specialists from eight Digital Government Exchange (DGX) member states across the world, has identified 11 core principles to support international collaboration on the development of mutually recognised and interoperable digital identity systems and infrastructure... More
Swedish developers have demonstrated how an NFC chip implanted in a user’s hand or arm can be used to store a digital version of their Covid vaccination or test certificate... More
More than nine in 10 consumers in Nigeria (91%) and six in 10 consumers in Indonesia (60%) would be likely to use a central bank digital currency (CBDC) compared with less than 24% in the US and 14% in Germany, according to a report by Giesecke+Devrient and the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF)... More
iPhone users will soon be able to attach tags to their keys, wallets, bags and other personal items that use NFC, ultra wideband (UWB) and Bluetooth technology to enable them to easily locate their belongings with their smartphone... More
Customers of all six state-owned Chinese banks can now apply for test versions of the banks’ digital yuan wallets as the country rolls out the next phase of its central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot programme in the city of Changsha... More
The European Union is to present a legislative proposal this month for a digital ‘green pass’ vaccination certificate that will enable residents to prove that they have been inoculated against Covid-19... More
PARTNER NEWS: STMicroelectronics has released two new NFC Type 5 tags that combine NFC and RFID technology, Augmented NDEF and anti-tampering to let developers “leverage NFC contactless communication in new and imaginative ways for applications in consumer engagement, brand recognition, supply-chain management and access control”... More
