ABI Research forecasts 8.6 billion smart cards will ship in 2013, spanning all smart card markets. Of the total shipments, 16% are forecasted to use a contactless interface but that will rise to 30% by 2018. Government ID, transportation and ticketing, and payment cards continue strong double-digit growth in contactless adoption. Single-wire protocol SIM card […]

Samsung has reached an agreement with The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, placing Samsung-branded NFC stickers in all 51 Singapore locations. TechCrunch reports that the marketing campaign — which began on February 8 and will run through March 7 — will reward Samsung device users with an larger drink just for tapping the NFC stickers. […]

As part of an experiment to help guide Japanese shoppers government officials in Tokyo have dispatched nearly 300 NFC location tags throughout the Ginza shopping district as well as launched an Android app enabling customers to interact with the tags. As reported by CIO.com, the Ginza initiative is the latest in a line of city-based […]

By Cindy McCall, Vice President of Marketing, The CBORD Group Inc. In five years, a campus card will be much more than a physical card. Mobile and other virtual extensions of the campus card that are seen as cutting-edge today will be expected as standard offerings. These extensions will pave the way for campus card […]

The 2013 Smart Card Alliance payments Summit saw executives from MasterCard and Visa spoke about the payments industry, explained their road maps and provided vision for the future payments infrastructure. The summit saw head of authentication product integration for Visa, Stephanie Ericksen, reveal new details that will expand Visa’s roadmap to include EMV. Ericksen revealed […]

At this week’s Smart Card Alliance Payments Summit, the Smart Card Alliance Payments Council wrapped up its 2012 activities and announced its leadership for the coming year. The Payments Council focused on EMV and NFC payments over the last year, working on educational efforts, including its EMV Connection web site. The council also announced its […]

RFID transponder and inlay developer SMARTRAC has revealed Australia-based NFCWireless as the winner of its global NFCTags partner competition. The NFCTags partner competition began in December 2012 with the goal of providing developers and inventive newcomers with an outlet to showcase their products and solutions to a global audience at the Mobile World Congress in […]

By Fred Emery, Vice President and General Manager of Campus Solutions at Heartland Payment Systems Spend time around a college campus these days and it will become apparent just how attached students have become to their mobile phones. Whether texting, listening to music, playing games, checking out the latest app or talking to a friend, […]

By Joseph Pritikin, Director of product marketing, AOptix It may be two years, it may be ten, but soon enough the identity credential will look very much like Facebook, YouTube, or Amazon: It will be an app or functionality embedded within an app on your smart mobile device. While the identity credential will be enabled […]

Citi has launched a new banking machine in Asia that’s designed to eliminate the need for a branch visit for most types of transactions, including opening accounts and loan, card and cashier check applications. The machine, dubbed “Citibank Express,” comes with an online banking connection, video conferencing capabilities and biometric authentication. Customers can also integrate […]