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.

Telefónica Announces Trusted Service Manager Contract

Spain-based Telefónica said it has chosen Germany-based Giesecke & Devrient as its trusted service manager as it gears up to introduce NFC services in Europe “over the next few months.”

It’s not clear, however, where Telefónica plans to launch, though it has active NFC planning going on in Spain and at its O2 operators in the United Kingdom, Germany and the Czech Republic. Telefónica said it would introduce the services through its own mobile-wallet application.

Any early 2012 launches of NFC, especially if they involved payment, would be small, since there would still be relatively few NFC-enabled phones available and almost no contactless point-of-sale terminals, except in the United Kingdom and in pockets in Spain, such as on the Balearic Islands. And O2 UK has delayed the NFC portion of its launch, through its own O2 Wallet.

It’s the first major trusted service management contract announced by Giesecke & Devrient and follows an embarrassing loss for the company on its home soil of the Deutsche Telekom group TSM contract for Europe, which went to France-based Gemalto.

Telefónica also said G&D would supply some NFC-enabled SIM cards. G&D has supplied NFC-SIMs for Telefónica trials in Spain and likely for a trial held earlier this year in the Czech Republic. G&D also served as TSM for a portion of the popular O2 Wallet trial in the United Kingdom, which launched in late 2007. G&D’s TSM business was called Venyon then.

G&D would manage the secure elements for Telefónica, which would be SIM cards the telco issues. That would include download and personalization of applications onto the SIMs and communicating with service providers, such as banks, which could have their own TSMs.

Telefónica, in its announcement today, said it has been “working hard on NFC technology” in recent years, including holding trials of mobile payment in the town of Sitges, outside of Barcelona last year with La Caixa bank and Visa Europe, and a transit trial in Pilsen, in the Czech Republic, along with payment and access control for employees at its headquarters in Madrid.

“Now is the right time to plan a wide deployment of NFC services,” the telco said in an announcement today, adding that “financial services is a key focus area for Telefónica.”