Visitors to the recent Nashville Predators WineFest in Tennessee in the USA were able to access exclusive digital content provided by nearly 90 retailers taking part in the fundraising event by tapping NFC tags with their NFC-enabled smartphone... More
USA
Amazon expands contactless pay by palm technology to Whole Foods Market stores in Colorado
Customers at Whole Foods Market stores in the greater Denver area in the US state of Colorado can now gain access to the supermarket and make contactless payments for their purchases with their palm... More
TSA to extend contactless digital ID verification pilot to airports in Puerto Rico and Tennessee
The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is to start letting passengers use their digital driving licence or state ID card stored on their smartphone to verify their identity at checkpoints in Luis Muñoz Marin International Airport in Puerto Rico and Nashville International Airport in Tennessee later this year, according to TSA administrator David Pekoske... More
Half of drivers rank in-car payments as a top priority for connected car services
More than half of drivers globally would choose the ability to make in-car payments for parking, fuel, tolls and food as a priority when ranking the important features of connected car services (56%), according to a survey... More
JP Morgan to pilot in-store biometric payments with US merchants
Financial services company JP Morgan is to pilot a biometric payments solution that will enable consumers to make contactless in-store payments with their palm or face at selected bricks-and-mortar merchants in the USA and “potentially” at the Formula One Miami Grand Prix in May... More
Panera Bread installs biometric palm payments devices at US bakery stores
Customers at Panera Bread outlets in St Louis, Missouri, in the USA can now opt to access their loyalty account and make contactless payments for their purchases with their palm... More
NJ Transit adds cash top-ups to mobile ticketing app
Passengers using NJ Transit services across the US state of New Jersey who do not have a bank account or a debit or credit card can now use cash to fund the purchase of digital tickets and passes for travel on bus, train or light rail services on their smartphone... More
US Department of Agriculture to put state benefits on mobile phones in five states
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is to enable citizens entitled to financial support under its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri and Oklahoma to receive benefits and make NFC or QR code payments for eligible purchases on their mobile device... More
Visa reports on passenger preferences for transit payments
More than four in ten transit passengers worldwide say that tapping their own debit or credit card to make open loop contactless fare payments is their preferred fare payment option (42%), followed by tapping a card stored in their mobile wallet (39%), using a closed loop transit card (38%), cash (31%) and app-based payment (29%), according to a Visa survey... More
Utah lets drivers create a mobile driving licence on their smartphone with a selfie
Drivers in the US state of Utah can now opt to create and store a digital version of their driving licence on their Apple or Android smartphone by scanning their physical document and verifying their identity with a selfie using biometric facial recognition technology... More
Apple patents biometric palm recognition technology for smartphones and wearables
The US Patent and Trademark Office has granted Apple a patent for an “electronic device including palm biometric sensor layer” that would enable users to unlock a device and authenticate other interactions on a smartphone, smartwatch or other wearable by verifying their identity with their palm... More
Nine in ten businesses to increase spending on digital identity verification
Nine in ten businesses across the finance, technology, telecoms and aviation sectors worldwide (91%) plan to increase their spending on identity verification (IDV) technology in the next one to three years, with one in three intending to increase their IDV budget by 20% over that period, an international business survey has found... More
Tampa Bay transit authorities roll out open loop contactless ticketing with fare capping
Passengers travelling on bus and trolleybus services across the Tampa Bay region of Florida in the US can now make contactless fare payments using their physical contactless credit, debit or prepaid card or via Apple Pay or Google Pay on their NFC smartphone or wearable... More
More than 4bn digital identity apps to be in use by 2027
The number of active digital identity apps in use globally will exceed 4.1bn by 2027, up by nearly 2bn from a total of 2.3bn in 2023, according to a forecast by Juniper Research... More
New York grocery store launches contactless scan and pay shopping
Customers at Foodcellar Market grocery stores in New York City in the US can now scan the items they wish to purchase with their smartphone and then pay for them from their mobile device before leaving the store... More
Researchers develop secure vibration-based authentication for visually impaired users to unlock their mobile device
Researchers at the University of Waterloo in Canada and the Rochester Institute of Technology in the USA have developed a system that enables blind and visually impaired people to securely access their mobile device by responding to a series of haptic vibrations... More
Washington Metro lets students add digital transit passes to Apple Wallet via NFC
College students with a physical prepaid U-Pass SmarTrip transit card can now generate, store and use a digital version of it in Apple Wallet... More
Penn State launches contactless mobile student IDs for NFC devices
Penn State University in the US has launched a digital student identity card that students can store on their Apple or Android NFC smartphone or smartwatch and use to access campus buildings and to make contactless on-campus purchases... More
Report lays out way forward for US transit agencies to adopt open loop contactless fare payments
Transit agencies in the US would benefit from introducing open loop contactless fare payment systems but widespread adoption “has remained elusive” owing to challenges that both the US public transportation and payments sectors need to address, according to a report by the Washington DC-based Brookings Institution research group... More
California to roll out digital driving licences that users can store on their mobile phone
The US state of California is planning to launch a digital driving licence that users will be able to store in a digital wallet on their smartphone, the state governor Gavin Newsom has revealed... More