NFC Times Exclusive: Despite a widespread belief in some circles that NFC and Bluetooth low energy, or BLE, are in competition, a number of observers say they believe that the two technologies will fill complementary market niches, especially in retail marketing and wearable devices.
The vice president for digital product for Clear Channel Outdoor has told NFC Times the company’s recent announcement of plans to expand its NFC-enabled outdoor advertising network to several more countries is based on “engagement rates” by consumers that justify the larger deployment.
While some view it as a passing fad, interest in wearable devices continues to grow according to recent surveys, and if the trend holds, it could boost demand for Bluetooth and other connectivity technologies, including NFC.
The move to standardize tokens by the major payment networks has broad implications for how mobile commerce, including NFC payments, will be rolled out.
As large transit authorities in the U.S. prepare deployments of open-loop fare collection, they say they still need progress from the payments industry to make those deployments successful.
NFC Times Exclusive: Facebook is unlikely to become a real payments player or use NFC or other technologies to try to make the jump to the physical point of sale anytime soon, panelists at a recent NFC conference agreed.
NFC Times Exclusive: As the Isis joint venture gears up for its planned national rollout, NFC Times looks at the view on the ground in its pilot cities of Austin, Texas, and Salt Lake City, Utah, from the perspective of merchants and consumers.
As NFC-enabled mobile devices reach the market in larger numbers, announcements of commercial-grade NFC-enabled advertising campaigns have also increased, demonstrating that the market for NFC-enabled marketing is beginning to materialize.
The NFC enabled Lexus ad in the April 2012 issue of Wired generated much interest in print advertising applications for NFC, but actual take-up among advertisers and publishers appears slow, and there haven’t been any high-profile launches since.
A number of mobile operators in Europe and beyond are planning to introduce their own NFC-enabled payment services starting in 2013, as the telcos begin to roll out their NFC mobile wallets.
Plans by Transport for New South Wales, Australia’s largest transit agency, to launch a trial enabling users to plan, book and pay for multimodal rides is the next step toward the agency’s long-ter
Updated: The Spokane Transit Authority in Washington state confirmed that its new fare-collection system will include contactless open-loop payments–with a beta test planned for next October, a spokesman told NFC Times' sister publication Mobility Payments.
The UK government’s plan to equip 700 rail stations over the next three years to accept contactless open-loop payments is a major initiative, as it seeks to replicate the success of London’s contactless pay-as-you go fare payments system elsewhere in the country–a goal that has proved elusive in the past.
A fourth city in Finland is beginning to roll out contactless open-loop payments, with “more in the pipeline,” according to one supplier on the project, making the Nordic country one of the latest hotspots for the technology.
Moscow Metro is recruiting more users to test its “Virtual Troika” card in two NFC wallets, those supporting Google Pay and Samsung Pay, as one of the world’s largest subway operators continues to seek more ways for its customers to pay for rides.
The Central Ohio Transit Authority, or COTA, officially launched its new digital-payments service Monday, including a fare-capping feature that the agency estimates will cost it $1.8 million per year in lost fare revenue, the agency confirmed to Mobility Payments.
As more transit agencies introduce open-loop fare payments, interest is starting to grow in use of white-label EMV cards that agencies can issue in place of proprietary closed-loop cards for riders who don’t have bank cards or don’t want to use them to pay fares.
Skånetrafiken, the transit agency serving one of Sweden’s largest counties, announced today it has expanded its contactless open-loop payments service to include the Express Mode feature for Apple Pay.
Two more bus operators in Hong Kong on Saturday launched acceptance of open-loop contactless fare payments, with both also accepting QR code-based mobile ticketing–as the near ubiquitous closed-loop Octopus card continues to see more competition.
Touting it as the largest rollout of biometric payments in the world, Moscow Metro launched its high-profile “Face Pay” service Friday, as expected, and predicted that 10% to 15% would regularly us
Indonesia’s capital Jakarta, whose metropolitan area is home to more than 30 million people, is notorious for its stifling traffic congestion. In response, the government metro and light-rail networks and now it is funding an expansion of the fare-collection system to enable more multimodal payments and to build a mobility-as-a-service platform.
Transit agencies that have rolled out open-loop contactless payments are seeing growing use of NFC wallets to pay fares, as Covid-wary passengers see convenience in tapping their phones or wearables to pay.
