Latest News

Shared and Limited-Use Tokens and Other Changes: Tokenization 2.0 Explained

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – The second version of EMVCo’s payment tokenization technical framework adds two new token use cases aimed primarily for e-commerce and in-app payments, along with a few new assurance and authentication features, but much of the focus of the version 2.0 has been on restructuring and clarifying issues from the first version of the tokenization framework released more than three years ago, according to EMVCo in a webinar.

First Data Expected to Begin Tokenizing Mastercard-Branded Cards Next Year; Visa More Restrictive

NFC TIMES Exclusive –  Big U.S. acquirer and processor First Data plans to generate its own tokens for Mastercard-branded card accounts next year, NFC Times has learned, and a source says First Data is also in discussions with Visa to do the same, but Visa may not allow the processor to tokenize Visa-branded cards in place of the network’s own Visa Token Service.

Visa Launches Program to Promote Contactless Transit Payments

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Visa has formed a unit to promote use of Visa-branded contactless cards and accounts on NFC phones and other devices, seeing an opportunity to expand on the success of open-loop fare collection in London and plans for the move by transit authorities in a growing number of cities, including New York, to accept contactless credit, debit and prepaid bank cards for fares.

USA Technologies Seeks to Bolster Services, Markets with Acquisition of Cantaloupe Systems

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Unattended point-of-sale vendor USA Technologies expects to close its $85 million deal to acquire competitor Cantaloupe Systems next week, telling NFC Times the deal will add to USAT’s suite of services and expand its international reach.

Orange Cash Gets New Life as Part of Orange Bank App

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – As expected, Orange will continue offering its NFC-enabled Orange Cash Visa-branded card with the launch of its Orange Bank mobile service.

First HCE-Enabled JCB Cards to Hit Market in Taiwan in First Quarter

Nov 14 2017

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – TAIPEI, Taiwan: Japanese credit card company JCB will participate early next year in a mobile wallet from the Taiwan Mobile Payment banking joint venture, marking the first time JCB will support host card emulation in a mobile payments service.

Canadians Take to Contactless Cards, but NFC Wallets? Not So Much

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – While a well-developed contactless card and POS terminal infrastructure and strong consumer take-up of contactless card payments has often been touted as the gateway to use of mobile payments, that is often not the case. Take Canada, for instance.

New York Approves Delayed Contract for Contactless Fare Collection, Clearing Way for Rides with NFC Wallets

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority board has approved a long-anticipated contract to enable riders to pay with contactless credit and debit cards, including cards loaded into NFC mobile wallets, by 2019–the largest transit authority to do so since Transport for London launched open-loop fare collection in late 2012.

Fitbit Chief Plans to Enable Entire Product Line for Payments with NFC; Challenges Lie Ahead

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – LAS VEGAS:  Fitbit CEO James Park today said the large wearables maker plans to enable contactless payments across its entire range of devices over the next few years using NFC technology, a move he said he hopes will help make contactless payments “ubiquitous around the world.”

Major League Baseball to Roll Out Availability of NFC Ticketing in 2018, but Will Stadiums Adopt the Technology?

NFC TIMES Exclusive – Major League Baseball in the U.S. may roll out NFC mobile ticketing next year as part of Apple Pay, although it’s unclear how many stadiums or other venues would be involved, sources told NFC Times.

Apple Promotes ‘Everyday’ Commerce for Apple Pay as It Seeks to Increase Transactions

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – LAS VEGAS:  As Apple continues to try to address what many observers consider to be a disappointing showing for its now three-year-old payments service, Apple Pay chief Jennifer Bailey played up the theme “Everyday (commerce) With Apple Pay,” during a keynote at the Money 20/20 fintech show Sunday.

Group Representing Big U.S. Banks Plans to Issue Own Tokens for Cards Carrying Major Brands

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – The Clearing House, a group of the largest banks in the U.S., announced its first plans to tokenize cards branded by a major network, as the banks seek to reduce their dependence on tokenization by the major card schemes.

Apple Watch Likely to Lag Behind in Tag-Reading Ecosystem

NFC TIMES Exclusive – As the NFC tag industry responds to iOS 11, Apple Watch isn’t drawing much focus, and use cases for tag-reading on the wearable remain limited.

Mobile Payments Contribute to Slow Decline of Cash

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Mobile payments are one of the key factors driving the gradual replacement of cash with card and digital payments, according to the annual World Payments Report released this week by consulting and IT services firm Capgemini and major French bank BNP Paribas.

Apple Pay Finally Signs Up Second Major Bank in New Zealand

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – In certain markets, Apple continues to face resistance from major banks, which, among other things, do not want to participate in an Apple-branded wallet. That’s true in Australia and in such major Western European markets as France, Spain and Italy, where only one major bank in each country is supporting Apple Pay.

Wells Fargo Launches NFC-Enabled ATMs, Though Rollout is One Year Behind Schedule

Oct 16 2017

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Wells Fargo, the third largest U.S. bank by assets, made good on its pledge last March to launch NFC-enabled ATM cash withdrawals by the end of this year, although that is one year behind schedule, and Wells Fargo is far from the first major bank globally to support the technology on ATMs, even in the U.S.

Carrefour Pay Launches in China with UnionPay, but Can the Network Beat Back Rivals Alipay and Tencent?

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Carrefour and China UnionPay have launched their 2-D bar code-based Carrefour Pay wallet feature, as UnionPay continues to try to find relevance in a booming Chinese mobile payments market now dominated by Alipay and WeChat Pay.  

First Major Chinese City Accepts UnionPay Bank Cards–and Apple Pay–for Transit Fares

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – China UnionPay and the Guangzhou Metro have announced the transit company will accept UnionPay-branded contactless credit cards and bank cards loaded into the Apple Wallet, the first such Chinese city to support open-loop fare collection.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia to Support Fitbit Pay in Addition to Garmin Pay and Android Pay; Continues to Shun Apple Pay

NFC TIMES Exclusive – Commonwealth Bank of Australia will support mobile payments with Fitbit Pay and the wearables maker’s forthcoming Ionic smartwatch, NFC Times has learned. That’s in addition to support for Garmin Pay and Android Pay, which the bank announced earlier this week; but the bank appears set to continue snubbing Apple Pay.

Mastercard Survey: Use of Mobile for Purchases in Emerging Markets in Asia Pacific Far Surpasses Use in Developed Countries

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Despite large rollouts of NFC or related technologies in such developed Asia-Pacific markets as Japan, Australia and New Zealand, use of mobile phones for purchases in emerging markets in the region far outstrips those in developed markets, a Mastercard mobile shopping survey found.

Google Shuns NFC for ‘Audio QR’ in Tez Mobile App in India

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Google’s new payments app in India, Tez, uses proprietary sound-based technology to enable mobile payments–shunning both NFC and also apparently scannable QR codes, as the tech giant seeks to break into the country’s rapidly growing but increasingly crowded digital payments market.

Mastercard's Renamed ‘Engage’ Program for Digital Payments Vendors Lists Relatively Few Certified MDES Partners

NFC TIMES Exclusive – Mastercard has released its list of “partners” or certified vendors that it hopes will help the network roll out its key digital payments products, the Masterpass wallet and tokenization from the Mastercard Digital Enablement Service, or MDES. (See table below.)

Taiwan Regulators Express Doubts about Use of BLE for Top Transit E-Purse; Apple Rejects Purse for Wallet

NFC TIMES Exclusive – TAIPEI, Taiwan: EasyCard Corp., which runs the largest closed-loop transit and retail payments service in Taiwan, is seeking to become the first major transit fare-collection system globally to roll out Bluetooth-based mobile ticketing. But Taiwan’s strict financial regulator still has doubts about the security of the technology.

MediaTek Using NFC Technology from STMicroelectronics, Though Extent of Deal Not Disclosed

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight ­– In what may be a response to the proposed tie-up between Qualcomm and NXP Semiconductors, STMicroelectronics has announced that it is “cooperating” with Taiwan-based MediaTek, the No. 2 supplier of processor chips for smartphones, to integrate its NFC technology into MediaTek reference designs.

Singapore Latest Country Pushing National QR Code Specification

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Singapore is the latest country developing a national specification for QR code-based payments, seeking to reduce fragmentation of various QR code-based schemes.

HEADLINE NEWS

Australian Transit Agency to Launch Mobility-as-a-Service Trial as It Pursues Long-Term MaaS Strategy

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: U.S. Transit Agency Seeks to Reduce–Though Not Eliminate–Cash Acceptance with New Fare-Collection System

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.

UK Government Seeks to Bring London-Style Contactless Fare Payments System to Other Regions

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.

More Cities in Finland Expected to Move to Open-Loop Fare Payments

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 Expands Test of ‘Virtual Troika’ in Pays Wallets, as It Continues to Develop Digital-Payments Services

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.

Ohio Transit Agency Expects Significant Revenue Loss as it Builds Equity with Fare Capping

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.

Special Report: Interest Grows in ‘White-Label EMV’ for Closed-Loop Transit Cards

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.

Swedish Transit Agency Launches Express Mode Feature for Apple Pay, though Most Ticketing Still with Barcode-Based App

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.

Major Bus Operators in Hong Kong Now Accepting Open-Loop Payments–Adding More Competition for Octopus

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.

Moscow Metro Launches Full Rollout of ‘Face Pay;’ Largest Biometric Payments Service of Its Kind

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

Indonesian Capital Seeks to Expand to Multimodal Fare Collection and MaaS

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.

Exclusive: NFC Wallets Grow as Share of Contactless Fare Payments and Not Only Because of Covid

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.