Swatch partners with eleven Chinese banks for second-generation payments watch
Four new NFC smart watches that make use of China UnionPay’s cloud-based payments service have been unveiled in Shanghai by Swatch Group CEO Nick Hayek... More
Smart watches
Sony’s semi-smartwatch now has a smaller version and a leather strap with NFC
Sony’s semi-smartwatch now has a smaller version and a leather strap with NFC — The Verge — “Sony is also launching a new leather strap in all three sizes — you lose the steel band’s notification functionality, but it still has NFC — and is starting to sell the steel band separately as well for people who want to mix and match… The Three Hands Square “head” and steel band will go on sale later this month, but the leather bands won’t be available until late December.”
Apple Pay launches in Hong Kong
Apple Pay has launched in Hong Kong with support from Mastercard, Visa and American Express. Participating banks include Bank of China (Hong Kong), DBS, Hang Seng Bank, HSBC and Standard Chartered, with support from The Bank of East Asia (BEA) and Tap&Go “coming soon”. More
US Smart City Challenge adds NXP’s RFID tagging solutions
PARTNER NEWS: The US Department of Transportation (USDOT) has expanded its Smart City Challenge initiative to include NXP’s RFID tagging solutions and smart card ICs... More
ARM includes AMS NFC payments booster in wearables reference design
PARTNER NEWS: A new reference design for wearables from processor designer ARM includes high-performance NFC technology from AMS that enables small-footprint devices with tiny antennas to couple with NFC readers as easily and reliably as a contactless card... More
Swatch confirms payment watch launch in US, Switzerland and Brazil
Swiss luxury watchmaker Swatch has confirmed that it has signed an agreement with Visa and Visa Europe to enable eligible cardholders in the US, Switzerland and Brazil to tap and pay with the Swatch Bellamy watch. More
Swatch partners with Visa to roll out NFC payment watch in US and Switzerland
Luxury watchmaker Swatch has signed a contract with Visa to roll out its Bellamy NFC payment watch following its debut in China in October 2015... More
Dubai commuters to replace travel cards with watches
Commuters in Dubai may soon be able to pay for travel using contactless watches from Watch2Pay... More
Sony unveils Wena Wrist with NFC payments
Sony is crowdfunding a new smartwatch called Wena Wrist that is equipped with NFC payments compatible with the Japanese Felica standard... More
Samsung unveils Gear S2 with NFC
Samsung has unveiled the Samsung Gear S2, its latest smartwatch which includes NFC for payments... More
Half of Brits expect to replace cash with new technologies
More than a quarter of UK consumers (27%) think they will be making payments using wearable devices including watches and wristbands within 10 years, 22% think they will be regularly using their fingerprint to make those payments and 7% think they will use a microchip embedded in their body, research from Lloyds Bank reveals... More
620m biometric app downloads by 2020
More than 620m mobile banking apps that support biometrics for customer authentication and transaction verification will be downloaded by 2020, research from Goode Intelligence predicts... More
DigiSEq gets MasterCard approval to provision payments to mass market wearables
MasterCard has approved a solution that enables payment credentials to be provisioned to wearable devices with a secure element and NFC antenna... More
Wearable payments to reach $501bn by 2020
Payments made using wearable devices such as smart watches, fitness trackers and wristbands will grow from US$3.1bn in 2015 to $501.1bn worldwide by 2020, research from market intelligence firm Tractica finds... More
Samsung smartwatches to support Samsung Pay?
Samsung is planning to offer Samsung Pay mobile payments on the smartwatch devices it is scheduled to launch in the second half of this year... More
Samsung Pay could work on smartwatches
Samsung managing director Park Jin-young hinted during the company’s first quarter earnings call that the forthcoming Samsung Pay system may also work with its smartwatches... More
New Pebble could offer NFC strap
Watch maker Pebble has smashed through a US$500,000 crowdfunding target, raising nearly $16m in a matter of days to produce its new Pebble Time smart watch with a colour display... More
LG smart watch to offer NFC payments
An LTE-equipped variant of LG‘s new luxury smart watch will offer NFC mobile payment functionality, reports Engadget... More
Liber8 raises funds for e-ink bracelet that uses NFC to change designs
A bracelet that combines an e-ink display with NFC to let the wearer change its design by simply selecting an image on a mobile app and tapping their smartphone against the bracelet has beaten its fundraising target on Indiegogo and is now set to go into production... More
Scotiabank adds smartwatch app
Canada’s Scotiabank has launched a Quick Balance app for the Samsung Gear 2 and Samsung Gear S smartwatches that lets customers check their account balance with a swipe of the screen... More
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