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Near Field Communication and all contactless technology

NFC TIMES Exclusive – With the announcement this month by large analog watchmaker Swatch of the expansion of its digital payments service SwatchPAY! to Europe, the payments wearables market could see a considerable change.

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Apple Tuesday reported that its digital payments service recorded more than 1.8 billion transactions globally in the tech giant’s fiscal first quarter ending in December, more than double compared with the same quarter a year earlier–though transaction growth is slowing and transactions still represent a small percentage of total card transactions.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Acceptance of contactless and NFC payments in the U.S. has lagged behind many other developed markets for years, but that continues to change, with another major merchant–big box retailer and top 10 U.S. chain Target­–announcing Tuesday that it would soon take tap and pay.

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Dutch bank ABN Amro commercially launched its contactless payments service from wearables this week, following a lengthy pilot.

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – The U.S. is finally on the brink of large-scale contactless EMV card issuance, with optimistic projections from the payment networks, and at least one of the largest U.S. issuers committed to converting its credit and debit card portfolios  to dual-interface cards by the end of 2019.

NFC TIMES Exclusive – The 76th Annual Golden Globes held Sunday featured the usual share of Hollywood celebrities preening for the cameras, showing off their new designer gowns and latest nips and tucks, while holding their trophies high if they won.

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Japan, the first market globally to adopt contactless-mobile payments, in 2004, with a technology similar to NFC, will see its two largest convenience store chains introduce their own mobile payments services this year–both using bar codes or QR codes instead of NFC.

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – The UK’s largest bus operator has announced that it has completed its rollout of open-loop payments acceptance on 7,400 buses in the country, declaring itself the “single largest contactless transit merchant in Europe outside London.”

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – When Vancouver-area transit authority TransLink introduced open-loop fare payments last May, it was clear that the agency was not planning to phase out its closed-loop Compass Card anytime soon.

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Apple again reported a tripling of transactions for its payments service, Apple Pay, during its fiscal quarter ending in September, while noting other achievements. But the growth is believed to be off of a relatively low base, and four years after launching the payments service, Apple is still not releasing detailed numbers about its transactions.

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Major U.S.-based global networks, including Visa, Mastercard and American Express–hoping to keep transactions on their networks as more commerce goes online and digital–amplified their push for the Secure Remote Commerce specification, which is being drafted by their jointly owned payments specifications group, EMVCo.

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – London transit authority Transport for London is proposing to extend an agreement with U.S.-based fare collection system vendor Cubic Transportation Systems to license the authority’s technology used in its pioneering contactless open-loop payments system.