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 –Sweden-based Seamless Distribution told NFC Times it will use a proxy-card architecture, along with host card emulation, to enable NFC payments from its SEQR mobile wallet, a move the company hopes will help it greatly expand the acceptance network for its wallet.
Dutch mobile operators and banks have decided not to form a joint venture to roll out NFC services together, saying “developments in the market” were responsible for ending the deal that was nearly three years in the making.
Scandinavian Airlines plans to introduce an NFC application for frequent flyers as early as this summer, enabling those with Android NFC phones to tap for a faster flow through check-in, security screening and boarding.
A decision by the European Commission to launch an in-depth investigation into the proposed NFC m-commerce joint venture by the United Kingdom’s three largest mobile operators could create delays in NFC rollouts in the UK and problems in other European countries, where telcos are planning similar joint ventures.
Four Swedish mobile operators announced they have formed a mobile-payments joint venture, the latest telcos to form a company to help them roll out NFC and other services.
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 eight-month pilot is one of the first of its kind enabling guests to check-in on th
Results:
Locking company and trial organizer Assa Abloy announced results of the eight-month trial in June 2011, reporting that more than 90% of the 28 guests who participated said they would use the service if it were available on their cell phones. More than half of the users said they saved at least 10 minutes by avoiding lines at the hotel check-in counter.
About eight in 10 trial participants surveyed said they would like NFC applications on the same phone that let them pay for food, drink and other hotel services, according to the Assa Abloy survey. About 80% also agreed they’d like to receive hotel maps, room service menus and gym and spa information downloaded to their phones.
Just under 30% of respondents said they would choose a phone that supports a mobile-key service for their next handset, according to the company.
Unlike other major transit agencies in the U.S., which have spent hundreds of millions of dollars replacing or upgrading their fare-collection systems, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority has taken a different approach.
The Go-Ahead Group, one of the big five privately owned public bus operators in the UK, said today it has seen cash usage on board the nearly 3,000 buses it runs in England outside of London fall to 23% of transactions, down from 53% three years ago.
Arriva, one of the largest private transit operators in Europe, has launched a mobility-as-a-service app in the Netherlands, using white-label software from Israel-based trip-planning app provider
The California Integrated Travel Project, or Cal-ITP, is “on track to have at least several more” open-loop pilots or demonstration projects, a spokeswoman for the program told Mobility Payments.
Mobile wallets now make up more than half of all contactless payments for Transport for New South Wales, Australia’s largest transit agency, the agency confirmed to Mobility Payments.
A Turkish start-up hopes to entice more taxi drivers to accept contactless credit and debit cards using SoftPOS terminals on Android smartphones, under a scheme being rolled out by the local fintec
Moscow Metro announced that it is officially testing facial recognition-based fare payments at turnstiles, with plans to roll out the technology by the end of the year.
Moscow Metro is launching a trial of a virtual version of its closed-loop Troika card that will be added to the Google Pay wallet, the agency announced Wednesday.
The Washington (D.C.) Metropolitan Area Transit Authority last month started to replace 1,200 aging fare gates for its 91-station metro system and starting next year will do the same with 20-plus year-old fareboxes on board 1,500 buses, including upgraded readers for its closed-loop SmarTrip cards.
Visa reported this week that contactless payments continued to climb as a percentage of all face-to-face transactions with its brand, mainly at retail, and among the uses the network is continuing to push for contactless is to pay for transit fares.
Sampo Hietanen, founder and CEO of Finland-based MaaS Global, agrees with most other industry experts that public transit should form the “core” of the mobility services on offer in any MaaS app or platform. But he contends that it would be a mistake for the agency itself to control the platform.
Despite the growing popularity of contactless, NFC and QR-code technologies for electronic fare-collection, some transit agencies are experimenting with other technologies to collect fares.
