Walmart, Target, 7-Eleven, Best Buy, Publix, Sears, Shell and Sunoco are amongst a dozen major merchants that have formed a new company called Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) that will provide an alternative to services like Isis and Google Wallet. More
“The US payments industry should undergo a coordinated migration to chip and PIN transactions which should support a broad range of payment types (contact, contactless, dual interface, debit, credit, stored value, private and ‘white’ label, etc.) and devices (cards, mobile devices, fobs, etc.),” says the Merchant Advisory Group, a retailer trade association whose members include Walgreens, Walmart, Target, Sears, McDonald’s, Best Buy and Home Depot... More
Mobile Money Network, the joint venture established in November 2010 between Best Buy Europe, Monitise and Charles Dunstone, founder of Carphone Warehouse, has announced its mobile payments service is to be called Simply Tap... More
The Nexus S, the first Android phone to use the new Gingerbread version of the operating system and its built-in NFC functionality, will hit the shops in the US on 16 December and the UK on 20 December. For now, however, it looks as though the phones will only support tag reading applications — mobile payments capabilities will only be available later. More
US Bank has begun a field trial of microSD format NFC devices... More
NFC is likely to play a key role in the new venture as Monitise has already partnered with Visa and DeviceFidelity to integrate near field communication into its Mobile Money Manager platform. More
News in brief from the NFC world and beyond: Caen bids for NFC • Sprint adds mobile wallet • Vivotech’s Dubai deal • Microsoft tags retailers • Mobile payments boost banks • Paying cash keeps you slim • NCR buys into mobile barcodes More
The move to contactless cards and NFC-compatible point-of-sale terminals is gathering pace with banks in Italy and Poland announcing plans for widespread contactless card deployments this year. More