RBC Royal Bank and Scotiabank both plan to make the new mobile payments service available to their customers later this year — and RBC has announced it will now make all Interac Flash contactless payments available free of charge to its account holders. More
“The HKMA will work with the industry to promote a fully interoperable and versatile platform to enable Hong Kong to enter into a new era of diversified retail payments,” says Peter Pang, deputy chief executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. More
Banking group BAC Credomatic is to run an NFC payments pilot in Costa Rica, El Financiero reports... More
“NFC has reached the point of no return,” says practice director John Devlin. “It all hinged on handsets; and next year we will see half-a-billion devices in the hands of consumers as it becomes more widely integrated.” More
Marketing agency Charge has taken to the city streets in north east England to promote “Don’t let drink sneak up on you”, an alcohol abuse awareness campaign being run by the NHS’ Change 4 Life project... More
The Microsoft- and Accenture-owned IT company’s new solution allows consumers to select items promoted on interactive screens and then “drag and drop” them into their mobile phone using simple hand gestures, to collect detailed information about a product or add it to a shopping basket. More
Telefónica O2 Germany is using technology from Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) in an NFC payments pilot, which began last month... More
The takeaway pizza chain’s new Windows Phone 8 app allows customers to receive rewards by tapping their phone to NFC tags embedded in promotional material placed at the counter. More
Drivers in Metz, France can now register online to get an NFC sticker that allows them to pay for their stay at a 2,100 place underground car park without a ticket or cash... More
Mobile network operator Orange has teamed up with outdoor advertising company Insert to enable fans to download information about the new album by French artist Zazie as well as purchase it from their mobile phones. More
NEC has launched a turnkey prepaid payments service that includes cloud-based system servers, cards, smartphone apps and payment terminals and is available in both Japan and internationally... More
A simple add-on adapter for NFC phones cuts the cost of equipping staff with a reader for InfoChip’s 8mm industrial tags by more than half, the company says, and will “bring profound revolution in safety compliance, inspection management and industrial asset management.” More
The Go Short film festival, held in the Dutch city of Nijmegen from 13 to 17 March, used NFC tags to provide movie-goers with information on upcoming screenings and locations... More
“Customers will only have one TSM. It’s like a billing system; if you’re in, it’s harder to get you out rather than if you fight to get in,” says Olivier Piou. “I think that we have a very good momentum.” More
Canadian mobile network operator Rogers has added three Android and four BlackBerry NFC phones to the list of devices that work with its Suretap NFC payments service... More
MasterCard’s move to increase the fees charged to “staged” digital wallets like PayPal could see a similar surcharge being applied by Visa... More
The new fee is to be applied to “staged” digital and mobile wallets that provide a way for transactions to be charged to a customer’s credit card without any details about the purchase being passed on to the payments network. PayPal and Google Wallet as well as a number of other new market entrants are all expected to be affected but “traditional” NFC wallets will not. More
Sixteen Korean banks have introduced BankWallet, a prepaid NFC payments service that uses a platform developed by interbank clearing house KFTC. SK Telecom subscribers with an NFC phone will be the first to be able to use the new service and KT customers will be added soon. More
Key2Share allows virtual keys stored on NFC phones to be shared securely using QR codes that can be sent by email or MMS message — or even in the mail. More
Wireless charging is on its way for smaller devices, by combining wireless power transmission with NFC technology, says Finland’s VTT Technical Research Centre... More