Singapore’s Ministry of Transport and Land Transport Authority (LTA) will trial contactless payments using devices including wristbands later this year... More
Wearables
Barclaycard offers 50% off bPay wearables
Barclaycard is offering 50% off its second generation bPay contactless wearables during July via an online code that can be redeemed from its website... More
Europeans make more than 1bn Visa contactless transactions in 12 months
More than one billion contactless transactions worth in excess of €12.6bn have been made by Visa cardholders across Europe in the past 12 months, research from Visa Europe has found, with its customers spending €1.6bn using their contactless cards in March 2015 alone — a three-fold increase compared to the same month in 2014... More
“Highly interested” Canadians ready for mobile payments
Some 14% of Canadian consumers say they are highly interested in making in-store mobile payments and 11% are also interested in using a wearable device such as a smartwatch to do so, research from payment services supplier Tsys has revealed... More
Barclaycard launches second generation bPay wearable payment devices
Barclaycard has unveiled a second generation of its bPay wristbands and is to add contactless-enabled keyfobs and stickers to the range of bPay devices that will be made available for purchase on 1 July. More
Fans get contactless entry to football matches in Cyprus
PARTNER NEWS: Season ticket holders at a Cypriot first division football club will soon get into the team’s Antonis Papadopoulos Stadium on match day by tapping contactless keyfobs — or wristbands for younger supporters — against NFC turnstiles at the entrance. More
Almost one in six US consumers are using mobile wallets
Almost one in six US consumers (15%) have used a mobile wallet in the past six months, up from 9% in the same period in 2013, and an additional 22% are likely to adopt mobile wallet functionality in the coming six months, a study released by market research and consulting firm Chadwick Martin Bailey has found... More
TI opens NFC wearable design challenge
Semiconductor maker Texas Instruments is running an NFC wearable design challenge, inviting developers to use its RF430FRL15xH NFC sensor transponder to create wearable health and fitness applications... More
Broadcom licenses Mifare
Chip maker Broadcom has licensed Mifare, the widely deployed protocol for contactless ticketing, transportation and access applications... More
Lycos unveils wearables with NFC
Internet company Lycos has announced a line of NFC-equipped wearable devices including a ring ($59.99) and a wristband (US$124.99) that tracks the wearer’s physical activity, displays incoming calls and notifications and connects to a smartphone with a tap... More
Gazprombank pilots NFC tickets
Russia’s Gazprombank and MasterCard are piloting NFC mobile and contactless card payments for transit fares using PayPass terminals across the K-39 bus route in St Petersburg... More
Google’s Project Soli to bring hand controls to wearables
Google is working to create next-generation, hand-gesture technology that would enable rich interactions with smart devices regardless of screen size to “drive applications across wearable, home automation, automotive, industrial and medical markets”... More
Project Jacquard: Google and Levi’s collaborate on interactive clothing
Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group is working with Levi’s to develop interactive fabrics that would allow the wearer to use their phone just by tapping or swiping their clothes... More
First West Credit Union unveils contactless wristband
First West Credit Union has introduced the Dashband, a wearable payment wristband that comes equipped with Visa PayWave technology to allow wearers to make contactless payments. More
Marriott Hotels lets users check in with Apple Watch
Hotel chain Marriott Hotels has released version 4.6 of its iOS mobile app that introduces support for Apple Watch, enabling users to check in, receive room-ready alerts and check out from their wrist... More
Global biometrics market to hit $14.9bn by 2024
The global biometrics market will increase from US$2bn in 2015 to $14.9bn by 2024, with cumulative revenue for the 10-year period reaching $67.8bn, market intelligence firm Tractica forecasts... More
Saracens fans get contactless payment wristbands
Supporters of Saracens rugby union club have been given prepaid contactless wristbands that let them pay for food and drink with a tap at the club’s Allianz Park stadium in north London, as well make payments outside the venue and travel on the city’s public transport network... More
Barclaycard’s bPay band set for relaunch
Barclaycard is to shut down its first generation bPay prepaid contactless wristband at the end of the month and will launch “a newly designed wristband that’s lighter, slimmer and comes in a choice of colours… in a couple of months”... More
Tencent’s mobile OS to offer payments
Chinese internet giant Tencent has released a mobile operating system that is set to include mobile payments functionality... 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