Watchdata

"Our new Simpass-SC solution gives MNOs what they want right now — the most practical and quick-to-deploy form factor," says the company's Michael Yu. "We feel this will provide greater customer attraction and higher ROI for our MNO customers." More

Watchdata has demonstrated its NFC products and services at the Fifth Islamic Banking Exhibition in Tehran, in conjunction with local firm Padisar Informatics. The two companies are to work together to run mobile payment projects... More

Finalists for the annual Cartes trade show awards include Taiwan-based Go-Trust, developer of a single wire protocol compliant NFC microSD card. More

Growth in the Chinese mobile payments market has helped Watchdata sell another million of its NFC Simpass devices in just four months. More

Customers can now use their mobile phones to make payments on public transport services and at more than 2,000 other businesses by swapping their standard SIM for an NFC SIM+antenna device supplied by Watchdata. More

Smart card and data security specialist Watchdata has produced its two millionth Simpass SIM+antenna NFC device, the company has announced. "This marks an exciting and a very fruitful beginning for Watchdata as we continue to... More

The Open Standard for Public Transport (OSPT) Alliance is proposing a new open ticketing standard to be called Cipurse that will "enable technology suppliers to develop and deliver interoperable transit fare collection solutions for cards, stickers, fobs, NFC mobile phones and other consumer devices." Singapore's Land Transport Authority is the first to agree to adopt the new standard. More

China's second largest mobile network operator is preparing to launch commercial NFC services in four cities from next month, according to reports in the Chinese media. Commuters in Beijing will be able to make payments using either an NFC phone or an add-on to their existing phone. More

The Beijing branch of mobile network operator China Unicom has launched an NFC service in conjunction with Beijing Municipal Administration and Communications Card Co (BMAC). BMAC operates the Yikatong card, a contactless stored value card... More

China's largest mobile network operator is coming under pressure from MIIT, the national technology regulator, to join the Chinese banks and its two rival operators China Unicom and China Telecom in adopting a single, national mobile payments standard based on NFC standard technology.  More

China Mobile, the world's largest mobile operator with 470 million subscribers, and China Unionpay, the national bank card association, were amongst the first in the world to field test NFC back in 2006. Now, both companies are taking a second look at mobile contactless payments and mobile operator China Unicom is getting in on the action too... More

Including sticker-based and other non-NFC Forum standard systems, we've identified 41 NFC trials and commercial launches in our research for the Asia-Pacific section of The NFC Report, the new research report being written by Near Field Communications World's editor, Sarah Clark.  More

China Unicom and Yucheng Transportation Card Co have jointly introduced an NFC version of Chongqing city's Yucheng Tong card that can be used to make payments on public transport, in cinemas and at shops and restaurants.  More

Anyone who expected to visit Cartes 2008 and find just the odd NFC application hidden somewhere round the back of a small stand lost in the outer reaches of the exhibition hall was in for quite a surprise — Near Field Communications World spotted forty companies talking NFC at this year's event... More