Conrad Harvey, the IT head of Australian supermarket chain Coles, says he is hesitant to go forward with a major NFC payments trial due to concerns over security, reports ZDNet Australia. Speaking at a CEDA event in Sydney, Harvey said, “There’s an exciting opportunity in changing the way we can further interact with customers using […]

Research firm Gartner has placed NFC payments at the peak of the ‘Inflated Expectations’ curve in its 2011 Emerging Technologies Hype Cycle. According to Gartner, The Hype Cycle graph has been used since 1995 to highlight the common pattern of “over-enthusiasm, disillusionment and eventual realism” that accompanies each new technology and innovation. “Themes from this […]

Visa Inc. unveiled plans and incentives for U.S. merchants to deploy EMV with an eye toward near field communication, the company announced in August. EMV via contact chip, contactless or NFC all use dynamic authentication to reduce a fraudsters ability to use stolen credit card data. The U.S. is one of the only industrialized countries […]

The Tupelo School District in Mississippi has plans to introduce biometric finger scanners to identify students, according to the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal. School officials say the use of biometric scanners will be used to speed up school cafeteria lunch lines, during breakfast and lunch. School officials said the system would neither take nor store […]

IMS Research has launched a new report predicting that the number of payment and banking smart cards shipped in China will leap from 17 million in 2010 to more than one billion total by 2016. According to Analyst Don Tait, The People’s Bank of China’s announcement in March to convert the country’s debit and credit […]

ABI Research has released a new report predicting that 85% of point-of-sale terminals worldwide will be contactless-enabled by 2016 — up from just 10% in 2010. In “Cellular-enabled POS Terminals, ATMs, and Vending Machinesm,” ABI attributes the growth to the proliferation of contactless cards, “rapid” adoption of NFC-enabled cell phones, and the introduction of major […]

Public transport passengers in Halton, England will soon be able to use contactless transit cards on buses, trains and ferries, according to Runcorn & Widness Weekly News. Slated for debut in October, the new Oyster-style passes will be distributed by Merseytravel to those renewing their season tickets. In addition to transport ticketing, Merseytravel plans for […]

Citi announced the launch of the Citi Corporate Chip and PIN card, a compliant smart card designed for U.S. corporate cardholders traveling abroad. The cards, which include an embedded microprocessor, were developed in direct response to clients’ needs to use their U.S. commercial cards while traveling to regions where merchants are more familiar with chip […]

Frost & Sullivan has release a new report predicting that the revenues from trusted service managers (TSMs) for the NFC services market will reach €330 million by 2015, with a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 74% between 2010 and 2015. “NFC handset availability will stop being a restraint and will, instead, become a driver […]

The Sziget Festival in Budapest, Hungary, one of Europe’s largest music festivals, has introduced a cashless payment system using contactless payment cards and NFC technology. Concertgoers are now be able to make tap-and-go payments within the venue using preloaded contactless “Festivalcards,” operated by Metapay. According to Sziget, some 1,200 payment terminals at the festival are […]