HEADLINE NEWS

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

Published: May 23 2013

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.

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

Published: May 21 2013

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.

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

Published: May 16 2013

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.

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

Published: May 13 2013
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.

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

Published: May 13 2013

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.

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

Published: May 9 2013
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.

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

Published: May 9 2013

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.

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Google Wallet Chief Bedier Departs Company as Wallet Continues to Struggle

Published: May 9 2013
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.

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UK Retailer Marks & Spencer Sees Growing Use of Contactless

Published: May 7 2013

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.

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

Published: May 3 2013

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.

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

Published: May 2 2013

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.

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Cashless Technology Company Announces Rollout of Isis SmartTap on Vending Machines

Published: May 1 2013

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.

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France: Visa Europe to Launch Another microSD Trial in NFC Demo City

Published: Nov 23 2011
Caen, France
Scope: 
Trial
Status: 
Planned
Launch: 
Dec 2011
Main Application: 
Payment
Mobile Operator: 
N/A
Service Provider (application): 
Crédit Agricole (Visa payWave)
Merchants: 
500-plus
Users: 
200
NFC Handsets: 
N/A
TSM*: 
Gemalto (personalization)
Secure Element: 
microSD card
Other Vendors: 
Visa Europe, DeviceFidelity (contactless microSD, iPhone case), NXP Semiconductors (contactless chip, secure element)

About 200 bank customers and employees will be able to tap their iPhones with a contactless attachment case and microSD cards to pay where Visa payWave is accepted. They will download an app supporting the service to their handsets. The case contains a contactless chip, not a full NFC chip. The trial will be held in Caen, in France’s Normandy region. The city is the site of a planned NFC phone trial, part of French demonstration projects by mobile operators, banks and other service providers and which are also supported by government funds. Caen was also the site of an earlier NFC phone trial.

NFC Times Take: 

The trial is one of several involving microSD cards and the iPhone. In fact, Visa Europe and Groupe BPCE (Banque Populaire and Caisse d’Epargne), launched a similar trial with more users of the iPhone and also some Android and BlackBerry smartphones in June in the French cities of Nice and Strasbourg. These cities, like Caen, are sites designated for expanded full NFC phone trials. The microSDs are generally considered bridge technologies, until the arrival of full NFC phones in greater numbers. But the microSDs do enable banks to bypass operators to offer mobile payment, so they could stick around longer. But firm issuing models are yet to be worked out for microSDs.