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Near Field Communication and all contactless technology

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight ­– Nearly three years after embracing NFC technology for mobile payments but declining to support NFC’s tag-reading mode, Apple, in a surprise move, is adding tag-reading support to its NFC-enabled devices, including the iPhone 7 series and forthcoming iPhone 8, as well as its Apple Watch.

NFC TIMES Exclusive –  Alipay has no plans today to introduce a mobile wallet in the U.S., and is instead expanding its merchant acceptance footprint in the U.S. only to serve Chinese visitors, Souheil Badran, president of Alipay North America, told NFC Times.

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Samsung made it official, launching Samsung Pay commercially today in Taiwan with seven banks, as expected, following Apple Pay to the market by about two months and beating Android Pay, which is expected to launch on the island nation as early as next week. 

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Samsung today finally launched its Samsung Pay mobile payments service in the UK, well behind rival payments services Apple Pay and Android Pay.

NFC TIMES Exclusive – As they struggle with low user adoption of their respective wallets in the U.S., Apple and Google are seeking to add more features, hoping to increase transactions, NFC Times has learned.

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Apple CEO Tim Cook, with typical enthusiasm, touted Apple Pay’s “phenomenal traction” yesterday in a conference call with analysts. But with one exception, he again failed to release any actual transaction figures for the mobile payments service, while also apparently overstating the contactless and NFC acceptance footprint in the U.S.

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Samsung today said it had “officially” launched its mobile payments service, Samsung Pay, in Sweden and the United Arab Emirates after “early-access launches” in these countries, making it the first of the global “Pays” wallets to fully launch in either the Nordics or the Middle East.

NFC TIMES Exclusive – At least two German banks plan to follow the country's largest bank by assets, Deutsche Bank, in offering host card emulation-based mobile payments to their customers, NFC Times has learned.

NFC TIMES Exclusive – Samsung Pay is expected to launch next month in Taiwan, followed by Android Pay, as the two global “Pays” wallets gear up to compete with Apple Pay on the island nation, NFC Times has learned.

NFC TIMES Exclusive – A costly and time-consuming payments wearables certification process is a major contributor to delays in payments wearables getting into the hands of more consumers, Israel-based On Track Innovations’ director of marketing and head of innovations Nir Barr told NFC Times.

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – SIM card vendor trade group the SIMalliance acknowledged for the first time that NFC SIM shipments are dropping and blamed disappointing take-up by consumers, as well as the tail end of the impact of the closing of the Softcard joint venture in early 2015. The group again declined to release global NFC SIM shipment figures, however.

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – There are markets where the major banks welcome Apple Pay and other “Pays” wallets, such as Taiwan, the most recent country to launch Apple Pay. And then there are countries where banks hold back.