The Canadian government is preparing to give merchants the ability to refuse to accept a particular NFC payment service if it attracts higher than usual fees — should that situation ever arise in the future, a document obtained by the WSJ reveals... More
Wall Street Journal
Judge rules on fingerprint-locked smartphones
A Virginia Circuit Court judge has ruled that police officers cannot force criminal suspects to divulge mobile phone passwords but they can force them to unlock their phone with a fingerprint scanner, WSJ reports... More
A million consumers sign up for Apple Pay in first 72 hours
Apple Pay saw more than one million card activations within 72 hours of launch and is already the leading NFC payments player in the US, Apple CEO Tim Cook has revealed during the Wall Street Journal’s WSJDLive event. Cook also outlined future growth plans for the service, including a potential partnership with Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba. More
Core Jewels offers diamond rings with NFC
Tokyo-based jeweller Core Jewels is taking orders for the world’s first high-end diamond jewellery products that come equipped with NFC... More
Korea’s SK Planet buys US BLE offers platform Shopkick
Mobile offers platform Shopkick, which is working with a number of high profile US retailers to roll out a network of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons, has been acquired by SK Planet (SKP), operator of Korea’s largest shopper rewards program and part of the same group as carrier SK Telecom... More
No Apple Pay for Walmart, Best Buy
Owners of Apple’s new NFC-enabled smartwatch and iPhones will not be able to make Apple Pay mobile payments in either Walmart or Best Buy, the Wall Street Journal reports... More
Apple iWatch to support NFC payments?
Apple plans to include NFC in a new smartwatch that will be unveiled on 9 September, as well as in the next iPhone, the Wall Street Journal reports, “signaling that it sees a role for the device in digital payments.” NFC “is central to Apple’s plans to offer so-called tap-to-pay into its mobile devices, allowing users to pay for goods and services using credit cards stored with iTunes,” the report adds... More
Amazon to enter mPOS market?
An Amazon Card Reader will be available from next month costing US$9.99, according to internal documents from office supplies retailer Staples obtained by 9to5Mac... More
Affirm updates credit scoring
PayPal co-founder Max Levchin has raised US$45m for Affirm, a startup that lets retailers offer a credit option to online shoppers... More
Google tests Yubikey NFC tokens
Google is testing a version of Yubico’s Yubikey Neo NFC token with employees and “hopes to offer it to consumers next year as a more secure way of logging into Gmail and other Google accounts, The Wall Street Journal reports... More
Gemalto to announce major deal with Vodafone?
Vodafone Group is set to sign a five year contract with Gemalto, The Wall Street Journal reports, for “technology for a mobile payment service planned for launch next year”... More
Isis delays US NFC launch
The first pilots of the US mobile operators’ NFC payments program in Salt Lake City and Austin, Texas will not go ahead on schedule and no new date for the launch has yet been set, says Isis. More
Top US retailers to develop their own NFC mobile wallet
Walmart and Target are among a group of two dozen retailers working on the introduction of an NFC mobile wallet which would compete directly with Isis and Google Wallet, the Wall Street Journal reports. More
Google VP confirms NFC mobile commerce launch tomorrow
“We’re making a big bet on it as a company,” says Stephanie Tilenius, Google’s VP of commerce and payments. “There is a lot of potential there.” More
Google and Sprint to launch NFC payments this week?
Google is set to launch an NFC mobile payments service in conjunction with mobile network operator Sprint on May 26, according to a Bloomberg news report. More