The St. Petersburg Metro in Russia will launch a trial this month enabling riders to tap their phones to pay for fares, with plans calling for a rollout to users of all St Petersburg public transport in 2011.
TAIPEI – Taiwan’s largest mobile operator, Chunghwa Telecom, plans to issue at least 10,000 NFC "dongles" that subscribers will be able to tap to make retail payments, download coupons, view exhibit information and to ride metro trains and buses.
Visa Inc. is participating in a test program started by rival MasterCard that will let consumers pay for some New York subway tickets by tapping a credit card or a smartphone at the turnstile. (Reuters)
SINGAPORE – South Korean mobile operator KT Corp. plans to launch NFC services in mid-October with more than 50,000 Samsung phones and intends to add an NFC smartphone model from LG Electronics in March supporting the Android operating system, KT’s Eun-Seok Kim disclosed today.
Nokia is apparently offering a glimpse of its first application–a digital-receipt system–for what is expected to be its new line of NFC phones next year.
The three largest banks and three largest mobile operators in the Netherlands today announced their intention to form a joint venture to launch mobile payment, using full NFC phones.
Wells Fargo bank will reportedly test contactless-mobile payment this fall in association with Visa Inc., using microSD cards and a payWave application onboard.
The Ministry of Information Technology and Industry is looking to rally its nascent mobile payment industry around a single technology standard with the hope of cashing in on the world's largest mobile population. (TMCnet)
U.S.-based Broadcom, a maker of chips for smartphones and other consumer electronics, has finalized its acquisition of UK-based NFC company Innovision and will likely have a product announcement by early next year.
Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher behind Consumer Reports magazine, is calling on federal regulators to take measures guaranteeing that existing consumer protections are applied to new mobile payment solutions. (FierceMobileContent)
A deal between loyalty-scheme operator Zapa Technology and Ireland’s largest merchant acquirer, AIB Merchant Services, could see Zapa’s contactless stickers rolled out more widely in Ireland and also gain a foothold in the United Kingdom.
Major U.S. mobile carriers planning to launch an NFC-based payment service have been ramping up hiring and are preparing to order NFC phones, but are still looking for a CEO, sources told NFC Times.
U.S mobile carriers Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile USA hope to launch precommercial trials of their planned mobile-payment service in the third quarter of 2011, sources told NFC Times.
NatWest bank is dropping out of its O2 Money partnership with mobile operator Telefónica O2, leaving the telco looking for a new partner with which to offer prepaid payment cards and, later, NFC services in the competitive UK market, NFC Times has learned.
Hong Kong's Octopus Holdings has admitted to selling its customers' personal information since January 2006 and pocketing HK$44 million (US$5.7 million) from doing so. (ZDNet Asia)
While major U.S. banks and mobile operators are not apparently working together on mobile payment, they have attended meetings together convened by U.S. central bank officials, who want the parties to reach common ground on standards, infrastructure and business models.
UK-based NFC technology company Innovision announced today its CEO, David Wollen, has left the company, as the acquisition of Innovision by U.S.-based chip maker Broadcom moves forward.
The New York-based transit guru behind the Toronto Transit Commission's controversial move toward “open payment” says he believes the electronic fare system would cost Toronto “a small fraction” of the cost of adopting the province’s Presto smart card. (Toronto Star)
With interest growing in NFC but few NFC phone models yet on the market, such NFC bridge technologies as contactless stickers, microSDs and SIMs with flexible antennas are attracting more and more attention from service providers and telcos.
France-based Gemalto announced it is serving as trusted service manager for what appears to be a small NFC mobile-payment trial in Thailand involving a bank and mobile operator.
U.S.-based mobile-payment start-up RFinity is adopting passive-contactless stickers for its payment project in and around a university campus in Idaho, changing an earlier plan to expand its pilot using contactless microSD cards.
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.
