Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile USA announced their joint venture today, with plans to introduce NFC-based mobile payment in selected markets during the next 18 months.
An announcement by major U.S. mobile carriers of their joint venture to launch NFC-based mobile payment and other services, including the naming of a CEO, is imminent, according to sources and news reports.
Near Field Communication was the talk of Web 2.0 Summit early on, as Google announced that it will be included in a forthcoming phone, and powered by the next version of Android. (InformationWeek)
Nokia will add NFC to "some existing (Symbian) devices" early next year, Nokia’s senior vice president for smartphones, Jo Harlow, said in an interview published this week.
While Japan’s dominant mobile operator, NTT DoCoMo, declined to confirm a press report that it would move to standard NFC phones starting in 2013, most market observers agree the pressure on DoCoMo to adopt NFC will become too strong to resist.
In one of the first pilots of its kind, guests and employees of the Clarion Hotel in Stockholm, Sweden, will be able to check-in, receive their door keys and enter their rooms, all with their NFC phones.
The joint venture formed by U.S. mobile carriers to launch NFC-based mobile payment has chosen a trusted service manager for pilots it plans next year, but the venture still may be looking for a CEO, NFC Times has learned.
While the head of innovation for the popular Starbucks prepaid payment card declares that he is a "big fan of NFC,"the giant coffee-shop chain is not about to wait for NFC phones before introducing mobile payment, the manager told NFC Times.
A recent mobile-payment document from China’s largest mobile operator, China Mobile, makes no mention of the proprietary RF-SIM technology the giant telco had been promoting for mobile payment earlier this year, NFC Times has learned.
United Arab Emirates mobile operator du is weighing options for the possible launch of mobile payment with banks, along with other services, using NFC bridge technologies to try to turn popular smartphones, such as the iPhone, into payment devices.
Major NFC chip makers predict 40 million to 50 million NFC phones or more will be on the market by the end of 2011, along with a smaller number of NFC bridge devices.
Chunghwa Telecom has unveiled its NFC-Bluetooth "dongle," a large key ring designed to give NFC functionality to certain smartphones via a Bluetooth connection.
South Korea has got its first phone equipped with NFC or Near Field Communication technology. KT today unveiled the SHW-A170K, which sports NFC technology and uses NFC compatible USIM. (Samsung Hub)
A former AT&T manager involved in mobile payment sees battles ahead between the big U.S. mobile carriers and Visa Inc. and MasterCard Worldwide, as they fight it out for consumers in the emerging mobile-payment market.
Visa Europe plans to launch trials of mobile payment over the next few months using NFC bridge technologies, with a "view to commercializing" some of the devices, according to Visa Europe’s head of mobile.
Nokia today began shipping its first smartphone with NFC inside, the C7, but the phone requires a software upgrade for the NFC functionality to work, NFC Times has learned.
Mobile operators in yet another country are planning to test the waters for a possible future launch of their own mobile-payment scheme at the retail point of sale.
Transit agencies in some of the largest cities in the United States and Europe are moving forward at varying speeds toward accepting credit, debit and prepaid cards to collect fares onboard buses and at metro gates.
Delays by handset manufacturers have postponed Etisalat's plans to launch Near Field Communication technology, which allows users to make contactless payments using their mobile phones, in the UAE by more than a year, a telecom operator official said. (Gulf News)
The United Kingdom’s largest mobile operator is intent on “seeding the market” with new NFC phones by offering longer-term commitments to handset makers, a business development head at the telco said this week.
Payments industry veteran Patrick Gauthier has begun work this month as head of market intelligence at PayPal, while ex-MasterCard Worldwide innovation chief Joshua Peirez–who sources said had been up for the job as CEO of the U.S. mobile carrier joint venture–moves to Dun & Bradstreet.
Barclaycard confirmed it is working on contactless stickers and wristbands in addition to its contactless card and planned NFC mobile-payment rollouts.
BARCELONA – Spanish bank Bankinter plans to launch a small NFC trial within the next month with its mobile virtual network operator, Bankinter Mobile.
Large U.S. payment card processor First Data Corp. hopes to become a major mobile-payments player in the United States and beyond, but there are questions surrounding the experience of the new technology partner First Data has hired to help it bring m-payment services to the market.
California state officials have released a list of seven bidders it intends to award contracts to for the supply of core technology for the state’s ambitious plan to help more than 300 transit agencies roll out open-loop fare payments statewide.
The Moscow Department of Transport has announced it is launching a test of its planned “MultiTransport” mobility-as-a-service platform, which will enable users to plan and pay for rides on the Moscow Metro and other public transit, along with taxis. The city said it is planning to add other transport modes, including car-share and bike and scooter rental.
A commercial bus company serving Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi, has launched contactless open-loop payments on board its new electronic buses, and reports say officials and bankers would like to see contactless EMV payments expanded to other modes of transport.
Moscow Metro has 45,000 users for its Face Pay service since launching its rollout of facial recognition fare-payments in mid-October, the transit agency said today, in releasing more details about how the service works.
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.
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
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.
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 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.
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.
While the trend today is for more transit agencies to introduce open-loop fare payments, closed-loop cards, either in physical form or dematerialized on smartphones and wearables, will be with us for many years to come–though perhaps in a reduced role. That’s according to a recent panel discussion at the Mobility Payments Asia Pacific 2021 conference.
Andy Taylor, senior director, global strategy for Cubic Transportation Systems contended that the MaaS market is at a crossroads and could fail if it doesn’t change course, including putting cities and public agencies firmly in the “driving seat” of MaaS apps.
NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – As the Covid-19 crisis sows fear among mass transit customers and causes ridership on buses, trains and trams to crash, there is heightened interest in mobile ticketing and other electronic fare payments as a way to ease the concerns and help coax wary riders to return.
NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – With Switzerland’s No. 2 bank, Credit Suisse, expected to participate in Apple Pay, the U.S.-based tech giant continues to chip away at resistance among major European banks to joining its digital payments service.
NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – With the National Football League kicking off its season in a few weeks in the U.S., fans will be using NFC, QR codes and perhaps ultrasonic signals on their mobile devices, in addition to tapping contactless-enabled paper tickets, to attend football games and other events at all 31 NFL stadiums.
NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Most issuers in the U.S. have so far held back from rolling out contactless or dual-interface cards, but merchant acceptance has been quietly building over the past few years, despite some large U.S. retailers balking at accepting contactless cards and NFC-enabled devices.
NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight –Payments industry backers suggest that U.S. banks could have an incentive to begin contactless rollouts soon, but in the absence of deadlines from the major payments networks, which are rapidly approaching in other markets, there's no guarantee of rollouts in the U.S. on the horizon.
NFC TIMES Exclusive –As the digital payments ecosystem moves into 2018, it is dealing with many of the same unfulfilled promises, works in progress and unfinished business as in 2017.
NFC TIMES Exclusive – As more U.S. merchants launch their own payments apps, some seem positioned to offer serious competition to Apple Pay and the other NFC “Pays” wallets.
NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight –Promoters of contextual commerce are looking to a range of connected devices, including smart appliances and such home hubs as Alexa–along with a host of mobile devices–to enable consumers to pay in almost every context. But many challenges remain for what could become a “very disjointed” array of payment options, experts say.
