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Near Field Communication and all contactless technology

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Germany-based Giesecke & Devrient turned around its financial results in 2015, including its money-losing banking and SIM card unit, thanks mainly to restructuring and higher shipments of EMV bank cards to China and the U.S., the privately held company disclosed Tuesday. 

NFC Times Exclusive Insight –  France’s domestic debit scheme Cartes Bancaires has been gearing up for the past year to launch a tokenization service for French issuers, with commercial service expected in coming months, including in support of HCE apps launched by banks and possibly for “OEM Pay” services.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Six months after taking the helm of Israel-based On Track Innovations, CEO Shlomi Cohen is seeking to convince investors he can turn around the contactless reader and NFC vendor, which has been struggling despite greater global demand for the company’s main product, contactless readers.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Chinese payment network China UnionPay has announced support for Huawei Pay, a deal that could substantially expand the number of banks and payments cards that Huawei could enable for its NFC payments service as it seeks to compete with Apple and Apple Pay.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – TAIPEI, Taiwan: Taiwan’s second largest mobile operator, Taiwan Mobile, Tuesday launched support for credit and debit card payments on NFC SIM cards–but the telco is using an outside trusted service manager to manage its NFC SIM cards, not the TSM platform it set up with other Taiwanese telcos as part of a joint venture.

NFC Times Excusive – When Taiwan’s No. 3 credit card issuer, E.Sun Commercial Bank, held a press conference with Visa Dec. 28 to announce it was the first bank on the island nation to launch HCE-based mobile payments commercially, it also presented Hewlett Packard Enterprise as its technology supplier for the project.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Although reporting positive overall results for 2015, France-based Gemalto today said SIM revenue fell by 17% and mobile-financial services revenue dropped by 8% for the year, both of which it blamed at least in part on the closing of the U.S. Softcard joint venture last year.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Inside Secure, once a supplier of NFC controllers, is also exiting the market for NFC embedded secure elements, a product for which it never gained any traction. But the France-based vendor says it will continue to supply security for HCE payments apps.

NFC Times Exclusive – BARCELONA: PayPal will use host card emulation and the contactless acceptance network of Discover Financial Services to support NFC in the U.S. from the planned new version of its mobile app, NFC Times has learned.

NFC Times Exclusive – Some major Chinese banks are telling their customers that Apple Pay will launch on Thursday in China, which will become Apple’s biggest market for its payments service after the U.S.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Another major Australian bank, ANZ, has launched mobile payments with host card emulation, meaning that three of the country’s big four banks have now launched mobile payments using HCE for their customers packing Android phones.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Cardless ATM transactions are little more than a novelty now, but momentum is building, with three major U.S. banks, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo having announced or disclosed plans to enable customers to withdraw cash using their mobile phones. That may include support for such NFC mobile wallets as Apple Pay for at least some of the ATMs.