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Near Field Communication and all contactless technology

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Struggling U.S.-based fitness band maker Fitbit announced today it will introduce an NFC-based payments service, “Fitbit Pay,” after it launches its first-ever smartwatch, the Ionic, promising to enable major issuers in more than 10 markets globally to offer contactless payments supporting the Visa, Mastercard and American Express brands.

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – The Beijing Subway and Beijing’s public transport payments company Yikatong Monday launched what appears to be an HCE-enabled mobile payments system on the entire metro system after piloting the service earlier this summer on one line.

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Alipay is expanding acceptance in another overseas market, Russia, seeking to capture business from Chinese tourists who travel to the country.

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Apple Tuesday disclosed plans to launch its mobile payments service in four more small markets, including three countries in the Nordics, with the tech giant seeing higher usage of Apple Pay outside of the U.S., where NFC-enabled POS terminals are still not widely available.

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Research firm eMarketer predicts that mobile peer-to-peer payments in the U.S. will grow by 55% to more than $120 billion in 2017, an amount that is expected to double by 2021.

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Although Bank of America announced that its customers would “soon” be able to use the PayPal Wallet to pay for purchases in stores using NFC, a bank spokeswoman has told NFC Times that the NFC-enabled wallet might not even be available next year.

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – While such smartwatches as the Apple Watch are routinely provisioned with payments cards after they are in the hands of consumers, that hasn’t been the case for low-tech analog watches. Swatch Pay could change that.

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – PayPal is believed to have cut its deal with Samsung to be part of the Samsung Pay wallet mainly to gain access to the device maker’s MST technology, enabling consumers to pay in stores with their PayPal accounts without having to look for an NFC-enabled POS terminal.

NFC TIMES Exclusive –  Danske Bank’s MobilePay service in Denmark is one of the few mobile-wallet success stories globally, though on a small scale. Now the bank is planning to expand to other Nordic countries and seeks to continue to use BLE technology, not NFC, to enable the in-store piece of its mobile payments service.

NFC TIMES Exclusive – While NFC tag suppliers and other NFC backers rejoiced over Apple’s recent announcement that it would support NFC tag reading with its next mobile operating system, iOS 11, early indications are that tag reading with Apple NFC devices will not be as open as with Android devices, and the user experience will not be as simple.

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – A survey conducted by American Express suggests that U.S. merchants could increase their online sales by taking steps to enhance the security of customers' information.

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Belgium’s Belfius Bank said it signed up 25,000 users within a three-week period recently for its HCE-enabled mobile payments service that it has launched as part of its mobile-banking app.