The Westmoreland County Transit Authority (WCTA) is planning to install a smart card fare system on Westmoreland County, Pa. buses in 2011, according to The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. The WCTA has won $600,000 in state and federal grants for the purchase of cards, readers and computer equipment, which will allow riders to tap and pay for […]

Japan’s Toppan Printing Co. has announced the development of its new CP500 printer, which it claims is the “world’s fastest printer for ID cards, student cards and admission cards.” The CP500’s compact 340x320x435mm size is roughly a third of Toppan’s previous models, but it can handle items ranging from magnetic cards to contactless cards and […]

Burger King is now accepting concession and ez-link card payments in Singapore, making it the first western burger chain to adopt the Singapore Standard for Contactless ePurse Applications (CEPAS) since its introduction in December 2008. PaymentLink, exclusive partner of EZ-Link for payment and loyalty services on the concession and ez-link cards, has already installed 178 […]

Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies, manufacturer of Schlage contactless smart credentials and readers, has announced that it will enter into a technology partnership with Vision Database Systems (VDS), a supplier of ID tracking, issuance and management solutions. According to the Ingersoll Rand, the partnership will let VDS customers pair open architecture smart credentials and readers from […]

Citibank Korea has partnered with KT, Korea’s 2nd largest wireless services provider, to launch its new Citi Mobile Card, enabling Citi credit cards to be downloaded wirelessly to a mobile phone’s USIM chip. The new solution allows KT customers to tap their mobile phone on a contactless reader at the point of sale to pay […]

Alcatel-Lucent has launched a contactless payment and loyalty points program with Sanoma Magazines to help the Belgium-based publisher gain insight into the buying habits of its non-subscription customers, according to destinationcrm.com. In the pilot, customers use prepaid NFC stickers affixed to their mobile phones to buy Sanoma’s ‘HUMO’ and ‘Flair’ magazines by holding the mobile […]

California-based market research group iSuppli predicts “explosive” growth for NFC technology over the next few years, according to The Wall Street Journal. iSuppli says that this year’s worldwide shipment of 52.6 million NFC-equipped phones will quadruple to 220.1 million units in 2014. This means that 13.1% of all phones shipped in 2014 will feature NFC, […]

Last year there were 944 million EMV cards in circulation worldwide, according to EMVCo, virtually none of which were issued in the world’s largest payments market: the United States. With the rest of the world now upgraded to a higher security standard, the U.S. has a critical decision to make on when, how and if […]

California-based Tempo Payments is planning to pilot mobile contactless payments tied to “decoupled” debit cards, according to paymentssource.com. The pilot will involve tagging consumers’ phones with NFC stickers to conduct contactless mobile payments at the point of sale. Mike Grossman, Tempo’s CEO, says the company plans to eventually move the pilot to microSD based NFC […]

HTC CEO Peter Chou says that the Taiwan-based company will introduce NFC into its LTE smart phones and tablets late next year, according to androidcentral.com. Similar to the recently announced Google Nexus S, HTC’s new phones will feature integrated NFC chips for contactless mobile payments, identification and more. In a conference with GSMA, Chou commented […]