NFC TIMES Exclusive –Despite the resurgence in demand for NFC technology with the launch of Apple Pay in 2014, followed by other NFC-enabled “Pays” wallets and the separate rollout of HCE technology by Google, use of QR codes for mobile payments continues to grow in popularity globally.
NFC Times Exclusive – MasterCard Worldwide has named James Anderson group executive for platforms, a key position inside the payment network, which is seeking to secure its role in the ecosystem as mobile payments start to gather steam, NFC Times has learned.
NFC Times Exclusive – MasterCard Worldwide and EMVCo are working on a “payment identifier” that could cover all tokens for a particular card account issued to consumers, according to the payment network.
NFC Times Exclusive: While the thought of more consumers tapping their phones to pay in stores is attracting the most attention with the launch of Apple Pay, it’s the prospect of users paying for purchases in mobile apps with Apple Pay that could be the real breakthrough, say representatives of Visa and MasterCard Worldwide.
The move to standardize tokens by the major payment networks has broad implications for how mobile commerce, including NFC payments, will be rolled out.
NFC Times Exclusive: While continuing to support their applications on secure elements in NFC phones, Visa and MasterCard Worldwide confirmed their firm support for host-card emulation the past week, as they continue to fast-track new HCE specifications to the market.
Visa and MasterCard Worldwide have announced support for host-card emulation and cloud-based payments, with Visa saying it already has initial standards ready and noted endorsements from banks in the U.S., Australia and Canada.
NFC Times Special Report, Part One: In a move with potentially far-reaching implications for the NFC industry, Google has built support for host-card emulation into its new Android operating system, which could enable payments and other “secure” applications without a secure element.
MasterCard Worldwide is reorganizing its mobile-payments effort and team, planning to focus on what it calls “digital convergence,” with the aim of “enabling every connected device to be a commerce device,” NFC Times has learned.
The NFC Forum has announced the formation of five special interest groups, which will promote NFC rollouts in payment, retail, transport, health care, and consumer electronics.
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
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.
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.
As more transit agencies introduce open-loop fare payments, interest is starting to grow in use of white-label EMV cards that agencies can issue in place of proprietary closed-loop cards for riders who don’t have bank cards or don’t want to use them to pay fares.
Skånetrafiken, the transit agency serving one of Sweden’s largest counties, announced today it has expanded its contactless open-loop payments service to include the Express Mode feature for Apple Pay.
Two more bus operators in Hong Kong on Saturday launched acceptance of open-loop contactless fare payments, with both also accepting QR code-based mobile ticketing–as the near ubiquitous closed-loop Octopus card continues to see more competition.
Touting it as the largest rollout of biometric payments in the world, Moscow Metro launched its high-profile “Face Pay” service Friday, as expected, and predicted that 10% to 15% would regularly us
Indonesia’s capital Jakarta, whose metropolitan area is home to more than 30 million people, is notorious for its stifling traffic congestion. In response, the government metro and light-rail networks and now it is funding an expansion of the fare-collection system to enable more multimodal payments and to build a mobility-as-a-service platform.
Transit agencies that have rolled out open-loop contactless payments are seeing growing use of NFC wallets to pay fares, as Covid-wary passengers see convenience in tapping their phones or wearables to pay.
