The UK’s Department for Transport (DfT) has revealed plans to implement a national smart card for public transportation on English trains, trams and buses, according to railnews.co.uk. UK Transport Minister Norman Baker plans for the national smart card to be an “all-mode” device, and thus compatible with existing smart cards already issued by Passenger Transport […]

Wells Fargo has announced its participation in Visa’s NFC-enabled mobile payments field trial, joining Bank of America and US Bancorp as the third U.S. bank to test Visa’s new technology, according to finextra.com. The project, which will run until the end of the year, is expected to result in a commercially viable NFC-enabled mobile payment […]

Clear2Pay and Edenred are partnering to launch the first contactless card-based employee meal voucher program on the Belgian market. The electronic voucher, which will be used for the payment of food expenses at retail stores and restaurants, aims to provide a more convenient and eco-friendly alternative to current paper-based employee benefit programs, according to Clear2Pay. […]

Tyfone, creator of the SideTap MicroSD mobile payment solution, has landed $5 million in Series B funding from several investors, including HDFC Holdings, Polaris Software Lab and Ojas Venture Partners, according to telecomtiger.com. Tyfone says it intends to use the funding to expand its SideTap MicroSD memory card solution, which allows customers to make NFC-enabled […]

NXP Semiconductors announced that its MIFARE Plus contactless microcontroller has been chosen by the Russian city of Sochi to power the Automatic Fare Collection (AFC) system of its ground transportation network during the 2014 Winter Olympics. NXP is working with several partners to complete the system, including solution provider and equipment manufacturer Strikh-M, inlay manufacturer […]

Indianapolis-based Harrison College has become the latest higher education institution to sign up with financial services provider Higher One, New Haven, Conn., to distribute refunds to its students. Higher One will use its OneDisburse Refund Management system to provide the refunds. A file including student names and the total amount of each refund will be […]

French researcher CEA-Leti announced that it has demonstrated a contactless, high-speed interface for smart cards. Leti has created a prototype of a complete phase modulation system, a reader and a card, that now achieves speeds of 6.8 Mbit/s. Phase modulation’s spectral characteristics are superior to those of amplitude modulation, allowing considerably higher speeds than the […]

Silicon Valley-based Cimbal has announced the public launch of its software-based NFC payment network. The network, which the company claims is the first of its kind in the world, enables secure payment and peer-to-peer transactions using a smart phone instead of a plastic card. For transactions, a Cimbal user creates a payment request on his […]

Netsize has released a new report finding that a majority of survey respondents would use their mobiles to buy big-ticket items. “Unlocking the Value of Mobile Commerce” includes research on the value amounts that people are ready for and willing to pay through their mobile phone for pricey items that go beyond the usual mix […]

Dublin will see a new integrated smart card ticketing system by early next year, according to The Irish Times. The the €55 million project will start with a smart card rollout for the Luas and Dublin Bus services, to be joined later by Irish Rail, private bus operators and Bus Éireann. Annual ticket holders will […]