A slide deck and video recording of EMVCo’s keynote presentation at Contactless World Congress on the future of contactless payments are now available to access free of charge in the NFCW Knowledge Centre... More
Security
Chinese tea brand uses NFC tags to prevent counterfeiting and enhance customer experience
Customers purchasing special anniversary gift boxes of Chinese tea brand Halfism’s Fuding white tea can now verify their purchase is genuine, access detailed product information and receive coupons towards future purchases by scanning an NFC tag embedded in the product’s packaging with their NFC smartphone... More
Mastercard reports on growth in consumer adoption of emerging payments technologies
Nearly nine in ten consumers worldwide have made digital payments using digital wallets, contactless, QR codes, buy now pay later, money transfer apps, cryptocurrencies, biometrics and other digital payment technologies (85%) and more than six in ten say they have increased their usage of at least one digital payment method (61%) in the last 12 months, according to a Mastercard survey... More
EMVCo to keynote Contactless World Congress
EMVCo’s director of engagement and operations and the chair of the EMVCo Board of Managers will be making a virtual keynote presentation on the future of contactless payments at Contactless World Congress on 7 September at 3pm BST/10am EDT... More
US Department of Agriculture to trial NFC and QR mobile payments for contactless state benefits
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is to run a series of pilot schemes to test the use of mobile payments technology to enable citizens entitled to financial support under its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to receive benefits and make NFC or QR code payments for eligible purchases on their mobile device... More
Varla upgrades e-scooter security with NFC anti-theft system
E-scooter manufacturer Varla has upgraded the NFC-enabled anti-theft system on its Eagle One Pro vehicle to enable owners to lock and unlock it using a digital version of their contactless key card stored on their NFC smartphone... More
Survey finds four in ten businesses are planning to upgrade to a mobile-ready contactless access control solution
More than four in ten businesses are planning to adopt a mobile-ready contactless access control solution (42%) while just under one in four have already upgraded to a mobile-ready system (24%), a survey of professionals from across a range of industries worldwide reveals... More
Samsung combines payments, digital keys, boarding passes and IDs in single mobile wallet app
Samsung Galaxy users in the USA, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK can now store their digital payment, loyalty and membership cards as well as digital keys, boarding passes and Covid-19 vaccination certificates on their smartphone using the Samsung Wallet app... More
More than 90% of card present payments worldwide were made using EMV chip cards in 2021
More than nine in ten card present transactions conducted globally (90.44%) were made using EMV chip-enabled payment cards between January and December 2021, up from 88.55% in 2020, according to standards body EMVCo... More
Ireland tops survey of contactless and cashless payments usage across 14 markets
Nearly two-thirds of consumers in Ireland now make contactless payments with a mobile phone, smartwatch or other device (65%) at least once a month compared with an average of just over half of consumers in other countries (55%), a survey has found... More
Morocco launches national digital identity platform
Citizens of Morocco can now scan information from their contactless National Electronic Identity Card (CNIE) to create a digital identity using a national digital identity platform launched by the country’s Digital Development Agency and General Directorate of National Security (DGNS)... More
France to let citizens generate digital ID by scanning physical eID card with NFC smartphone
French citizens will soon be able to generate and store certified digital identification documents in a mobile app by scanning their physical Carte Nationale d’Identité Électronique (CNIE) eID card with their NFC smartphone... More
EU accuses Apple of breaching competition law by restricting NFC chip access
The European Commission has sent an official statement of objections to Apple laying out the reasons why it believes the company has “abused its dominant position in markets for mobile wallets on iOS devices” and is restricting competition by limiting third-party access to its NFC chip technology... More
Apple digital driving licences and IDs go live in Arizona
Apple users in Arizona are the first in the US to be able to add digital versions of their driving licence and state ID documents to Wallet and use them to verify their identity by tapping their iPhone or Apple Watch at selected Transportation Security Administration (TSA) security checkpoints... More
UK government unveils plans for secure and trusted digital identity standards
The UK government is to set up an Office for Digital Identities and Attributes (ODIA) and introduce legislation establishing an accreditation process for organisations handling identity data and making digital IDs “as trusted and secure as official documents such as passports and driving licences”... More
President Biden lays out US digital currency strategy
US President Joe Biden has signed an executive order (EO) “outlining the first ever, whole-of-government approach to addressing the risks and harnessing the potential benefits of digital assets and their underlying policy” including the possible issuance of a US central bank digital currency (CBDC), the White House says... More
Digital Identity Working Group lays out principles for interoperable digital identity systems
The Digital Identity Working Group (DIWG), made up of digital identity specialists from eight Digital Government Exchange (DGX) member states across the world, has identified 11 core principles to support international collaboration on the development of mutually recognised and interoperable digital identity systems and infrastructure... More
Silverstein lets World Trade Center workers add their employee IDs to Apple Wallet
Apple users working at the 7 World Trade Center office building in New York in the US can now gain access to the building, their workplace and shared amenities with a tap of their NFC-enabled iPhone or Apple Watch using a digital employee badge stored in Wallet... More
Royal Mail adds 2D barcodes to postage stamps
Royal Mail is adding 2D barcodes to UK postage stamps that link each stamp to its digital twin and will “facilitate operational facilities, enable the introduction of added security features and pave the way for innovative services for customers,” the postal service says... More
South Korea pilots mobile driving licences
South Korea’s Ministry of the Interior and Safety and the Korean National Police Agency have begun trialling a mobile driving licence prior to a national rollout and as a first step towards the introduction of other state-issued digital ID documents... More