Business Premier and Carte Blanche ticket holders travelling on Eurostar rail services from London’s St Pancras International station to continental Europe can now pass through UK passport checks and board the train using face verification alone... More
United Kingdom
Apple goes live in the UK with Tap to Pay on iPhone
Merchants in the UK can now use their Apple iPhone to accept contactless payments, with no additional hardware required, Apple has announced... More
Zara replaces single use gift cards with contactless keychains
Fashion retail chain Zara has taken delivery of 18,000 reloadable contactless keychains that shoppers can choose instead of the retailer’s existing single-use plastic cards when buying a prepaid card as a gift... More
Mastercard pilots plastic bank card recycling system
Mastercard and HSBC in the UK are piloting a card recycling system that the payments network hopes will become a blueprint for the global card industry... More
One in four self-checkout systems are now installed in non-food stores
More than a quarter of the 193,000 self-checkout systems shipped to merchants around the world in 2022 were installed in non-grocery stores “as the technology penetrates new segments”, research firm RBR has found. ... More
NatWest to let UK merchants accept contactless payments on Android smartphones
NatWest bank is launching a software-only point-of-sale (softPOS) solution that will enable merchants in the UK to accept in-person contactless payments on Android NFC smartphones... More
City of Brighton boosts local economy with digital gift cards that can only be spent at local merchants
Consumers in the English city of Brighton will soon be able to purchase a prepaid digital gift card that can be stored on a smartphone and used to make in-store mobile payments for goods and services at local retailers, restaurants, leisure attractions and other businesses... More
NHS trust promotes staff wellbeing with ixkio NFC hangtags
EXHIBITOR NEWS: Dorset HealthCare University NHS Foundation Trust in England is using ixkio’s NFC tag management platform to enable medical staff, care workers and other employees to access free wellbeing support resources by scanning an NFC hangtag with their smartphone... More
UK food bank lets users make in-store purchases with donated funds
Food bank users in the London borough of Hackney in the UK can now buy essential food items at local grocery stores by using a smartphone app to generate a QR code with their face and then use this code to authorise payments from dedicated funds... More
Johnnie Walker uses NFC to let consumers access immersive digital Singapore experience at Changi Airport
Consumers visiting a Lotte Duty Free store at Changi Airport in Singapore can access an immersive digital experience that brings to life the country as it might be in the year 2220 by tapping an NFC chip embedded in limited edition bottles of Johnnie Walker Blue Label Cities of the Future whisky with their mobile device... More
Sunderland football club to roll out contactless NFC ticketing
Fans of Sunderland AFC football club in the UK will be able to gain entry to home games at the Stadium of Light from the beginning of the 2023-24 season using a digital NFC season pass or match ticket stored on their smartphone or smart watch at stadium turnstiles... More
BMW rolls out UWB digital car keys for Android devices
Android users with a Samsung Galaxy 23+ or Google Pixel 7 Pro smartphone can now lock, unlock and start compatible BMW vehicles using the car manufacturer’s ultra wideband (UWB) Digital Car Key Plus without needing to take their mobile device out of their pocket or bag... More
UK hospital uses NFC to pilot diabetes home-testing for pregnant women
The University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust in the UK is to trial a solution that allows pregnant women to quickly and easily report the results of a home test for diabetes to antenatal care providers by scanning the testing device with their NFC smartphone... More
North Wales buses get interoperable fare-capped contactless payments
Passengers on buses in North Wales can now make contactless fare payments on services run by 25 different local operators with their debit or credit card using an interoperable fare-capped ticketing system rolled out across nearly 200 routes in the region... 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
Landmark London building rolls out support for employee IDs in Apple Wallet for contactless entry
Apple users working in landmark City of London skyscraper 22 Bishopsgate can now gain access to the building, their workplace and shared amenities with a tap of their iPhone or Apple Watch using a digital employee badge stored in Wallet... More
UK reveals proposals for national digital identity verification framework
The UK government has laid out proposals for establishing a framework for the use of trusted and secure digital verification services that will allow consumers to create certified digital identities for use across a range of use cases... 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
NatWest trials reverse vending machine that lets consumers recycle unwanted payment cards
UK bank NatWest is trialling a ‘reverse vending machine’ that enables consumers to securely recycle unwanted plastic payment, gift and loyalty cards as well as card readers and plastic bottles at locations across London... More
Barclays reports 50% increase in UK contactless transactions by value
The total value of contactless payments made in the UK jumped by 49.7% in 2022, Barclays reports, “as Brits embraced the £100 transaction limit and returned to high street shopping following the easing of all coronavirus restrictions”... More