NFC Times Exclusive: Vodafone Group today announced the launch of an NFC mobile-wallet and payments service in Spain and timetables for similar launches in four other European countries–all featuring Vodafone’s own co-branded prepaid payment application, SmartPass.
Telecom Italia’s mobile unit, or TIM, introduced its TIM Wallet around March, but NFC SIMs are still only available in fewer than 10 of its shops in Milan.
Large Italian payment card processor SIA plans to launch what it hopes will become an interoperable trusted service management hub for Italy to connect banks to telcos.
France-based Gemalto has announced its trusted service management contract with Telecom Italia, as Italy's largest telecom gears up for the launch of its NFC mobile wallet.
Italy’s Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, or BNL, has launched an NFC trial in Rome, with plans to expand to both online and offline mobile payments and loyalty.
Telecom Italia has launched a multiapplication NFC trial, enabling 1,000 users to make retail payments, to pay for bus, tram, metro and train tickets and taxi fares and redeem coupons and discount vouchers.
Vodafone Italia is the latest operator to disclose plans to launch its own payment application, with its announcement Tuesday that it will commercially launch NFC in 2013, starting with a trial this month in Milan.
Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy’s largest retail bank, plans what appears to be a small commercial launch of NFC payment around the end of the year with an unnamed Italian mobile operator, as well as mobile virtual network operator Nòverca.
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.
