Customers of nine banks representing 80% of the Belgian market can now make use of Sixdots, a mobile wallet service that uses a combination of QR codes and a six-digit PIN to make payments in stores, online and between friends... More
Identity
LoyaltyGrid uses NFC tags to let luxury brands reward their customers at the point of sale
Dutch startup LoyaltyGrid has unveiled a solution that lets luxury brands use NFC tags embedded in product packaging to guarantee the authenticity of their products — and deliver rewards, discounts, exclusive content, invitations to special events and other incentives directly to their customers... More
Canadian banks pilot biometric wristband payments
Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), MasterCard and other Canadian issuing banks have begun pilot testing an NFC version of Nymi, a biometrically authenticated wristband that uses the wearer’s unique cardiac rhythm to verify their identity. More
Bill Gates talks Apple Pay, NFC, Bitcoin and mobile money
“Apple Pay is a great example of how a cell phone that identifies its user in a pretty strong way lets you make a transaction that should be very, very inexpensive,” Microsoft founder Bill Gates has told Bloomberg TV... More
Panasonic takes NFC to the air
Panasonic Avionics is to add NFC to the in-flight entertainment (IFE) systems it supplies to airlines, providing a way for passengers and crew to make contactless payments and for passengers to access a range of personalized travel benefits... More
Verizon aims to replace usernames and passwords with QR codes
Verizon Enterprise has introduced Universal ID, a service designed to replace usernames and passwords with a QR code that consumers can scan with their mobile phone to gain access to a website or app... More
St George adds fingerprint security to mobile banking app
Customers of Australia’s St George Bank will be able to use the Touch ID fingerprint verification technology built into the iPhone 5S to log into mobile banking when iOS8 launches in September... More
Aruba Airport to test biometric tokens
Air France-KLM is to test a single biometric passenger token concept at Aruba Airport, Future Travel Experience reports... More
EyeVerify raises $6m
EyeVerify has raised US$6m in Series A funding for a service that uses the camera in a mobile phone to secure access to mobile banking and other apps... More
US merchant groups call for creation of open tokenization standards
Leading merchant groups in the US have come together to call for the creation of an alternative set of open standards for tokenized payments that would be managed by an independent body such as ISO or ANSI — rather than by the payments industry. More
NXP CEO: NFC secure elements will continue to see strong demand
“We feel very comfortable with the strength of the secure element,” NXP Semiconductors CEO Rick Clemmer has told analysts during the chip maker’s second quarter earnings call... More
Xiaomi unveils $13 smart band
Chinese mobile device maker Xiaomi has launched the Mi Band, a CNY79 (US$13) wristband that features sensors for health and fitness tracking and can be used to unlock the wearer’s Xiaomi smartphone via BLE... More
Westpac trials HCE mobile payments in New Zealand
Westpac has begun a host card emulation (HCE) pilot in New Zealand, enabling customers’ credit and debit card details to be securely stored in the cloud and then used at the point of sale to make mobile payments on their Android NFC device... More
Taiwanese carriers and transit card provider to launch NFC TSM this year
The TSM service for NFC payments being built by a joint venture between five Taiwanese carriers and prepaid card provider Easycard is to go live by the end of 2014, the partners have announced... More
HID Global aims to cut Medicaid fraud via NFC
HID Global has introduced a care worker tracking service that meets Medicaid Electronic Visitor Verification (EVV) requirements... More
Smartwatch with iris recognition and NFC seeks funding
Crowdfunding is being sought for an NFC-enabled smartwatch that features iris recognition technology, letting wearers identify themselves and unlock services using their unique biometric data... More
Hungarian Mobile Wallet Association reports NFC pilot results
Participants in The Hungarian Mobile Wallet Association’s MobilTarca NFC pilot made 41,000 payments valued at more than 120 million HUF (US$525,000) during the first 12 months of the trial, the association has revealed... More
Yapital tests fingerprint payments
Retailer-owned mobile payments provider Yapital is testing the use of fingerprint biometrics to replace PIN entry when paying by smartphone... More
Sensory adds voice and face security to phones
US startup Sensory has unveiled a biometric security solution that enables individual apps on a consumer’s smartphone to be secured via voice verification, facial verification or, for higher security applications like mobile payments and banking, a combination of the two... More
Nigerian farmers use NFC to access seed and fertilizer subsidies
“In some parts of the developed world, NFC can sometimes be a solution looking for a problem but we’ve got plenty of problems here in Africa and it is an ideal solution for quite a few of them,” says mobile money expert Susie Lonie. More