HEADLINE NEWS

UK Taxis Get NFC Tags for Promo Campaign; NFC Dynamic Screens to Play at French Sporting Event

Samsung Electronics, along with Australia-based NFC marketing firm Tapit, UK-based out-of-home advertising company Chiel and terminal vendor VeriFone are rolling out NFC stickers to 80 taxis in the UK, as part of a promotional campaign for musician Robbie Williams’ upcoming Samsung-sponsored tour.

OTI to Supply Contactless and NFC Readers for Gasoline Stations in North America

Israel-based contactless and NFC vendor On Track Innovations announced Monday it had received an order for 30,000 readers for point-of-sale terminals at retail gasoline stations in North America.

Taxis in Major U.S. Cities to Get NFC-Enabled Video Ads

Riders in 5,000 taxicabs in the U.S. would be able to tap on NFC tags on video advertising screens to download apps, brand information, coupons, maps, music and videos, according to technology suppliers that have equipped the taxis for potential advertising campaigns.

Royal Bank of Canada and Bell Mobility Announce Plans for NFC Launch

May 14 2013 (All day)

Canada’s largest bank and one of its three major mobile operators have announced plans to commercially launch NFC payments by the end of the year, following a trial this summer.

Analyst: Banks Have More to Fear from Cloud-Based Technologies Than NFC

Banks have much more to fear from cloud-based mobile payment than from NFC, even if mobile operators control the secure elements that hold the banks’ payment applications.

GSMA Proposes Global Standard for NFC-Enabled Loyalty and Couponing–Using SIM Cards

May 10 2013 (All day)

The GSMA mobile operator trade group is proposing a global standard for how point-of-sale terminals talk to NFC-enabled mobile wallets to enable consumers to redeem coupons and rewards.

Taiwanese Bank Gets Approval for NFC-Enabled Credit Cards; Okay for Other Banks Expected

Taiwanese banking regulators, as expected, have approved the first bank to issue mobile credit cards that could be downloaded over the air to SIM cards.

Google Wallet Chief Bedier Departs Company as Wallet Continues to Struggle

May 13 2013 (All day)

Google’s vice president of wallet and payments has left the company, following a difficult tenure for the former PayPal executive, who had tried to establish the Google Wallet for physical world payments and offers.

UK Retailer Marks & Spencer Sees Growing Use of Contactless

Marks & Spencer, one of the UK’s largest retailers, announced today it had rolled out contactless payment to 644 of its UK stores and said 14% of its card transactions under £20 (US$30.97) are contactless.

Identive Reports Growing NFC Business; Blames Flat Sales, Losses, on U.S. Budget Cuts

U.S.-based Identive Group reported growing NFC and smart card reader business, but fell back into the red during for the first quarter, a loss it largely blamed on U.S. federal government budget cuts.

German Bank and Telco Hold Small NFC Trial; Larger Launches Planned in Country This Year

As Germany gears up for NFC, German bank Dortmunder Volksbank along with Telefónica (O2) Germany have launched a small pilot putting a credit application onto SIM cards in Western Germany.

Cashless Technology Company Announces Rollout of Isis SmartTap on Vending Machines

Vending technology company USA Technologies plans to integrate the SmartTap mobile-commerce software into all of the company’s nearly 100,000 NFC-enabled terminals on vending machines nationwide.

Assa Abloy Seeks to Tap Market For NFC Mobile Keys

Sweden-based door-lock system supplier Assa Abloy–hoping to tap what it believes will be a growing market for NFC-based digital keys–is tuning its sales pitch with a formalized offer, called Seos.

The company, which owns some of the biggest brands in hotel and office building access-control systems, including VingCard Elsafe and HID Global, along with large conventional lock makers, said it is offering applications for mobile keys that work on all major smartphone platforms and which can be loaded onto SIM cards or other secure elements. The company first introduced the offer last year.

Daniel Berg, vice president of Assa Abloy’s Mobile Keys unit, told NFC Times the company has developed a trusted service manager platform to deliver and manage digital keys over the mobile network for hotels, building managers and other service providers. The Seos offer also includes contactless readers and locks and software development kits for application developers, the company said.

Assa Abloy hopes to see its products enabling guests to receive digital room keys before arriving at the hotel and enabling them to check in and out with a tap of their mobile phones. The hotel could revoke the keys over the air after the guest leaves.

Security staff in office buildings could send temporary digital keys to visitors and service personnel over the mobile network and the keys could be protected by mobile phone PIN codes, said Assa Abloy.

The offer also would enable homeowners to send the encrypted digital keys to visitors, handymen and babysitters from their mobile phones and revoke the keys when necessary.

“Homeowners no longer have to lend out physical keys and worry about them being lost or copied,” said the company in an announcement this week.

For the system to work, Assa Abloy or the hotel chains or other service providers that use Seos would need to strike deals with mobile operators or other owners of secure elements in NFC phones.

Assa Abloy’s HID Global unit announced a deal last year with Research In Motion that would enable enterprises to store their corporate badges and other access-control and ID applications on embedded chips in NFC-enabled BlackBerrys.

The company’s TSM would work with the TSM for RIM, ensuring that mobile keys would be delivered to a secure domain carved out in the embedded chip in the BlackBerrys.

Berg told NFC Times that the mobile keys applets support Java Card technology, used in nearly all SIMs and embedded chips. The applet also could run on a secure element in microSD cards, said the company.

Besides the BlackBerry operating system, Berg said the Seos system could run on Android, Windows Phone 8 and Apple’s iOS devices. The latter would require an NFC-enabled add-on for the iPhone.

Berg declined to name any planned commercial rollouts. Assa Abloy launched one of the first pilots of its kind in late 2010, enabling about 30 guests and employees of the Clarion Hotel in Stockholm, Sweden to check-in, receive their door keys and enter their rooms, all with their NFC phones. The pilot put digital keys on SIM cards in Samsung S5230 NFC phones.

Assa Abloy participated in other trials at Arizona State University in the U.S., and at office buildings in Europe and in the U.S., said Berg.