Passengers travelling on bus, train, tram and metro services in the Dutch capital and surrounding areas can now pay their fares by tapping onboard readers or ticketing gates at the beginning and end of their journey with their contactless debit or credit card or with their Apple or Android NFC smartphone.

Public transport providers GVB and EBS have launched the OVpay service in Amsterdam as part of a national rollout that began earlier this year. It has now made it available across a number of regions including Haaglanden, Voorne-Putten Rozenburg, Waterland and other municipalities in the province of North Holland.

A short video in Dutch explains how OVpay works.

The rollout is scheduled to be completed by 2024 with OVpay due to add support for discounted fares and season tickets “soon” and the existing prepaid OV-chipkaart transit card “slowly being replaced with a new one” that will “add new services”.

At launch passengers in Amsterdam can pay their fares using OVpay by tapping in and out with physical or digital contactless debit cards issued by ABN Amro, ASN Bank, Bunq, ING, Rabobank, Regiobank and SNS, physical or digital Mastercard and Visa credit cards as well as via Apple Pay or Google Wallet.

GVB unveiled plans to offer a choice of contactless and mobile fare payment options in December 2020.

Amsterdam gets tap-in tap-out open loop contactless fare payments was written by Tom Phillips and published by NFCW.

Passengers arriving on international cruise ships at the US port of San Diego can now verify their identity on entry to the country using biometric face recognition technology rather than by presenting physical documents to immigration officers from US Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

San Diego is the latest port to add support for the contactless biometric entry system that has been rolled out in 16 US sea ports across Florida, New Jersey, New York, Texas, California, Washington, Louisiana, Alabama, Puerto Rico and Maryland.

On disembarking from a ship at San Diego and other ports that support the technology, “passengers will pause for a photo that will be compared to the traveller’s existing passport or visa photo in secure DHS systems to biometrically verify their identity,” CBP explains.

“Once verified, passengers are allowed to proceed through inspections and exit the terminal.

“This innovative entry process further secures and enhances the customer experience while protecting the privacy of all travellers.

“The improved arrival process using facial biometrics verifies the traveller’s identity within two seconds and is more than 98% accurate.

“US travellers and select foreign nationals who are not required to provide biometrics and wish to opt out of the new biometric process can simply request a manual document check from a CBP officer consistent with existing requirements for admission into the United States.”

To date, more than 240 million passengers have entered the US using biometric facial recognition technology at air, land and sea ports across the country, according to the CBP.

CBP and Carnival Cruise Line launched the facial biometric solution in New Orleans in January.

Port of San Diego adds contactless biometric immigration checks using facial recognition was written by Tom Phillips and published by NFCW.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is this week launching a pilot scheme in four Indian cities to test the retail version of its prototype central bank digital currency (CBDC) for both in-store and peer-to-peer transactions, the central bank says.

The pilot will involve a closed user group in Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Bhubaneswar, who will carry out digital rupee transactions using a digital wallet issued by participating banks.

“The pilot will test the robustness of the entire process of digital rupee creation, distribution and retail usage in real time,” the RBI says.

After trials in the first four cities, the pilot will “later extend to Ahmedabad, Gangtok, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Kochi, Lucknow, Patna and Shimla”, the central bank adds.

“The scope of the pilot may be expanded gradually to include more banks, users and locations as needed.”

State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank and IDFC First Bank will support the first phase of the scheme with Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank due to “join this pilot subsequently”.

The RBI unveiled its plans to build a prototype digital rupee and test it in a range of scenarios and use cases in October.

India pilots digital rupee for contactless in-store and P2P payments was written by Tom Phillips and published by NFCW.

Apple Pay will begin a limited pilot rollout in South Korea this week, initially for online payments and with offline payments to follow, according to advertisements seen in the capital Seoul and reported by local media outlets.

The news comes as South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) also revealed that it has been reviewing terms and conditions for the launch of Apple Pay in the country following an application for review by Hyundai Card, which will be supporting the service at launch.

“IT professionals are predicting that Apple Pay will become available in stores and franchises where NFC technology has already been made available,” Korea JoongAng Daily reports.

“This includes franchises such as Starbucks, Costco, convenience stores, such as GS25 and CU, and large marts, such as E-Mart. Starbucks in particular is being given attention as it is the franchise most likely to welcome a large number of Apple Pay users, with younger people, including early adopters of new technologies, prone to frequenting Starbucks and memes spreading the concept of a MacBook as a Starbucks Pass.

“Ediya Coffee, a domestic coffee chain, is also seen as a candidate for Apple Pay users to visit, as the company announced earlier this month that its payment systems and kiosks will switch to adapt to NFC technology.

“Lotte Hi-Mart, Apple’s official reseller, is also expected to support Apple Pay after its launch. Lotte Hi-Mart could not give an official statement, but ‘Apple Pay Only’ signs were seen in several Lotte Hi-Mart stores around Seoul on Tuesday.”

The FSS has not yet made an official statement but said last week that it was planning to reply to Hyundai Card “soon” and that “the appropriate notification of service may be sooner than expected”, according to Korean financial news outlet Yonhap Infomax.

Apple Pay went live in Malaysia and Qatar in August and in Kuwait in October.

• NFCW maintains a list of major OEM Pay systems and the territories where they are live and available for public use.

Apple Pay to start pilot rollout in South Korea was written by Tom Phillips and published by NFCW.

Residents of Switzerland can now remotely verify their identity when opening an account with Swiss bank UBS by scanning the contactless chip embedded in their biometric passport with their NFC smartphone and confirming their identity with a selfie using face recognition technology.

The bank’s digital onboarding service enables Swiss citizens and foreign nationals with a Swiss residence permit to sign up for an account, access banking products and create an electronic signature in the UBS mobile banking app “anytime and anywhere” and without needing to carry out the real-time video interview that the bank previously required.

The service uses a document authentication solution developed by Latvia-based technology provider Regula that reads the RFID chip in a customer’s biometric passport via “the NFC module on a mobile device. It then sends the session to the server where both chip and data authenticity and integrity are verified by means of asymmetric cryptographic keys,” Regula explains.

“The secure authentication of the electronic chip contributes to the confidence that the information in the physical document is trustworthy and that the chip is not manipulated or cloned. Any discrepancy in the data checks show up immediately and present a clear sign of document tampering.”

“After the document verification is complete, the customer takes a selfie for a liveness check” that Regula’s facial recognition technology then compares with “the document portrait, both the visible one and the one in the RFID chip […], to ensure the person is who they claim to be,” the technology provider says.

“All these actions are done in less than five minutes, and right afterwards, the customer gets access to their freshly created bank account.”

UBS launched a sustainable credit card made of corn in November 2020 and forecast in February 2021 that widespread adoption of biometric payment cards could generate more than US$15bn in global banking revenue by 2026.

UBS leverages NFC and biometrics to let Swiss residents open a bank account from their mobile phone was written by Tom Phillips and published by NFCW.

NFCW will be bringing together senior executives and technical specialists from across the contactless payments ecosystem on 24-26 January for the Contactless Payments Summit, part of our Contactless World Congress series of online events. Interested in speaking? Here’s how to apply.

Have you introduced an innovative contactless payments product or service? Or do you have specialist technical or market expertise? NFCW invites you to share your knowledge and your achievements with your peers around the world at our Contactless Payments Summit.

Applications are welcome on any topic related to contactless payments. We are particularly interested in hearing from you if you are involved in any of the following areas:

• What’s next in contactless card issuing: Biometric cards, digital cards, wearables, mobile payments, sustainable production techniques, and more.
• The future of the point-of-sale: SoftPOS, biometrics, hands-free transactions and value-added services such as digital receipts and loyalty programs.
• Contactless cash: Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
• Transit ticketing: Innovations in both open loop and closed loop solutions. 
• Emerging technologies: Innovations in core technologies including NFC, UWB, RFID, biometrics, physical and digital card formats, mobile wallets, contactless readers, smartphones, wearables, testing, and more.

The deadline for applying to speak at Contactless Payments Summit is 9 December 2022 so don’t delay — complete our short application form today.

Apply now to speak at NFCW’s Contactless Payments Summit was written by Mike Clark and published by NFCW.

PARTNER NEWS: Cilab’s ci230 test solution will be used by international safety organisation Dekra to expand its NFC conformance testing services, by including the NFC Forum Wireless Charging Specification 2.0 (WLC) certification.

WLC makes it possible for consumers to use their NFC-enabled smartphones, laptops or small dedicated chargers to wirelessly charge smartwatches, wireless earbuds, digital pens, headsets, fitness trackers and other small battery operated devices at a power transfer rate of up to 1W.

First introduced by the NFC Forum in 2020, Cilab’s ci230 test solution became the first to be certified for WLC 2.0 wireless charging testing in May this year.

The addition of Cilab’s ci230 to its testing solutions means that Dekra is now able to offer its customers the ability to certify that their devices meet the requirements of the WLC 2.0 specification.

“Companies that innovate in NFC wireless charging systems help users take advantage of the existing NFC technology infrastructure for new customer experiences,” Dekra’s IoT laboratory manager Noemi Perez says.

“As a leading company in safety and certification services, Dekra’s selection of the ci230 test solution means that we will be able to guarantee that certified devices work with this eco-friendly system with Cilab’s test bench.”

“Having a new-generation test tool adopted immediately by one of the market leaders in compliance testing laboratories demonstrates our know-how and the maturity of this already certified tool,” Cilab’s managing director Alfred Binder adds.

“Deployed with reference antennas and a collaborative robot, we have a real technological advance on the competition. We will continue to innovate and bring second generation test solutions to the test and production market in the near future, to accelerate the time to market of these new devices.”

Cilab’s ci230 selected by Dekra for NFC wireless charging certification was written by Sarah Clark and published by NFCW.

Apple iPhone and Apple Watch users in Hong Kong can now personalise their digital Octopus transit card by adding specially designed card art from one of five collections of cartoons, portraits and other images created by Japanese and Hong Kong artists.

Octopus is enabling Apple users to select, upload and change the image on their digital card stored in Octopus Wallet to mark the Hong Kong transit card provider’s 25th anniversary and to encourage new customers to add the mobile Octopus card to their iPhone or Apple Watch “in order to enjoy the easy and convenient digital payment experience”.

Users can select a first image for free from the Octopus Card Image Store via the Octopus App until the end of January with the option to purchase other card images “coming at a later stage”.

At launch the 14 images available include well-known cartoon characters “with animated effects” such as Hello Kitty, a special Octopus anniversary image by award-winning illustrator Apple Tong and work by Hong Kong artists with disabilities.

Octopus enabled users to add their transit card to their iPhone and Apple Watch in June 2020 and added travel information and P2P NFC transfers to the Octopus Wallet in December 2020.

Octopus lets iPhone users personalise their digital transit card was written by Tom Phillips and published by NFCW.

The global cardless ATM market will have increased in value by US$2.11bn by 2026, an expansion driven by the growing adoption of NFC- and QR code-enabled smartphones and the emergence of biometric ATM technology, according to a Technavio forecast.

North America will account for more than half of the growth in market share (53%) owing to the increasing popularity of contactless payment services in the region, the researchers say.

“The increased penetration of smartphones is driving market growth, especially in emerging countries, due to the rising sales of low-priced smartphones. These smartphones have several features of high-end smartphones,” the researchers explain.

“Moreover, NFC chips enable smartphones to connect with other NFC-enabled devices in cardless ATMs for data transfer.

“A smartphone can also read QR codes on the ATM screen. Such factors are expected to fuel the growth of the global cardless ATM market during the forecast period.

“The emergence of biometric ATMs is a key trend. Concerns regarding hygiene due to the outbreak of harmful diseases are increasing in various countries. Hence, to tackle issues related to the spread of communicable diseases, vendors are focusing on contactless biometrics, including retina and iris scanning and 3D facial recognition.”

Increasing adoption of NFC, QR codes and biometrics drives growth across cardless ATM market was written by Tom Phillips and published by NFCW.

Passengers travelling on the 100E airport shuttle bus operated by Budapesti Közlekedési Központ (BKK) in the Hungarian capital of Budapest will soon be able to pay their fares by tapping their physical or digital contactless credit or debit card on an on-board reader.

BKK is the first transit authority in Hungary to announce plans to test an open loop contactless ticketing system that enables users to pay for and validate their fares with their bank card, smartphone or smartwatch. It says it will extend the test to other routes “if the experience is positive”.

“The pilot phase is expected to start in early 2023, as a first step on the 100E direct airport bus,” the transit authority adds.

“The aim of the project is to provide BKK’s customers with the most comfortable travel experience possible and to promote environmentally friendly, paperless public transport with another digital solution following the success of BudapestGo.”

BKK launched the BudapestGO Mobility-as-a-Service app in February.

Budapest to trial open loop contactless fare payments on airport shuttle bus was written by Tom Phillips and published by NFCW.

Employees of businesses with offices in the Skyliner building in the Polish capital of Warsaw can now get “touchless entry” to their workplace and shared amenities with a digital credential stored in an app on their Apple or Android smartphone.

Office and business park developer Karimpol Group has implemented the mobile access control system on some 300 Bluetooth-enabled door readers across the 42-storey skyscraper and integrated it into the building’s dedicated Skyliner app.

Karimpol originally planned to introduce an access control solution that supported both physical cards and app-based digital credentials, but “as it turns out, 95% of tenants have only ever used the mobile one, with physical cards only given to visitors”, the developer says.

The system uses HID’s Mobile Access solution that also enables administrators to “manage the credentials based on available licences and assign batches of virtual cards to specific tenants” as well as allowing tenants to “manage the virtual credentials themselves from within the Skyliner app”.

“In our previous building, we just used plastic cards. But staff were always losing or forgetting them, which wasted my time. Our reception would have to call me to confirm that an individual was really an employee, and I’d then have to reissue a card,” Karolina Cieślak from Skyliner tenant company Bolt says.

“The attractiveness of the Skyliner app in conjunction with HID’s Mobile Access solution is one of convenience, as frankly no one leaves their home without their phone. I can activate and deactivate virtual credentials easily, and as physical plastic cards aren’t used anymore, it helps us to be more green.”

A survey published in August revealed that four in ten businesses worldwide are planning to upgrade to a mobile-ready contactless access control solution.

Warsaw skyscraper gets contactless mobile access control was written by Tom Phillips and published by NFCW.

Passengers on British Airways (BA) flights from London Heathrow’s Terminal 5 to Malaga in Spain will be the first to trial a contactless biometric check-in and boarding system that will enable them to travel through the airport and board an international flight without needing to show their passport.

Customers who sign up to take part in the trial “will be invited to scan their face, passport and boarding pass on their smartphone or tablet ahead of travel, with this information being kept safe and secure,” BA says.

“When trial participants arrive at the airport, Smart Bio-Pod cameras verify their identity in under three seconds, allowing them to keep their passport safely in their pockets until they reach their destination.”

A short video shows how the system works.

“Not only is this the first time that our customers have been able to register their biometric information at home, but it’s the first time they can use it for British Airways’ international flights,” BA operations transformation manager David Breeze explains.

“This is a secure and efficient tool that makes for a smarter and smoother airport experience, which will reduce the time it takes us to board aircraft.

“The beauty of this technology is that it also frees our people up to look after more complex customer enquiries and deliver the best possible customer service.”

BA plans to trial contactless biometric check-in and boarding for six months on flights to Malaga and will extend the system to other international flights if it is successful, the airline says.

An IATA survey in November 2021 found that three in four airline passenger support the use of biometrics to speed up airport processes and in July the UK government unveiled plans to test contactless biometric border checks at airports and other entry points to the country.

British Airways trials contactless biometric boarding at London’s Heathrow Airport was written by Tom Phillips and published by NFCW.

The Sella banking group in Italy is piloting a biometric credit card that enables users to authenticate both contactless and contact payments with their fingerprint with selected customers of its subsidiary consumer credit company Sella Personal Credit.

Once they have received the card, users can add their fingerprint without needing to go into a bank branch using a device known as a “sleeve” and then use the card to make payments at any EMV-certified point-of-sale (POS) terminal or ATM worldwide.

“Once the fingerprint is acquired, the card is ready for use and requires no batteries: the biometric card is powered directly by the POS in the case of contact payments and through a magnetic field for contactless transactions,” Sella says.

“It will be sufficient to place your finger on the biometric chip on the front of the card to have a payment securely authorised.”

Sella trials contactless biometric credit card in Italy was written by Tom Phillips and published by NFCW.

Students at Penn State University in the US will soon be able to gain access to halls of residence and other campus facilities and to make contactless on-campus purchases using a digital student identity card stored on their Apple or Android NFC smartphone or smartwatch.

They will be able to add, store and use the new mobile Penn State ID+ card via campus card solution provider Transact’s eAccounts payments and ID app after uploading a selfie to their account.

Penn State is also to issue an upgraded physical student ID+ card to allow access to specific buildings and resources that do not yet support mobile-only transactions.

“The university is installing contactless and tap-to-pay transaction technology through a phased approach at all 24 campuses,” Penn State says.

“Upgrades to card readers will include exterior residence hall doors, interior residence hall doors, commons buildings, LionCash and meal plans and on-campus laundry washers and dryers.

“Integrating the technology into other resources is in development.”

Penn State will begin rolling out the mobile ID+ card in January 2023, the university says.

Transact launched NFC-enabled mobile student credentials for iPhone and Apple Watch users in the US in 2018 and rolled out support for Android devices in January 2020.

Penn State to roll out contactless mobile student IDs was written by Tom Phillips and published by NFCW.

PARTNER NEWS: Czech-based automated ticketing systems provider Mikroelektronika has achieved certification for its CRE11 contactless payment terminal with a single type approval test that significantly reduced the product’s time to market using Cilab’s ci230 test bench.

Using the ci230 throughout the design and certification process enabled Mikroelektronika to ensure the interoperability of the CRE11 terminal across all form factors — including contactless cards, mobile phones and smartwatches — and verify its compliance with the EMVCo PCD CL1 3.1a specification via the test bench’s multiple debugging functions.

In addition to the ci230, Cilab supplied Mikroelektronika with a Denso Cobotta collaborative robot and EMVCo reference antennas to support volume testing and enable the completion of a fully automated test session with all antennas in just 25 minutes.

Training and support

Cilab experts also provided Mikroelektronika staff with ongoing training and support during the design and certification process.

“Thank you for your help and support during development, Cilab. Clearly, the ci230 testing tool was a great choice,” Mikroelektronika product manager Tomáš Jun says.

““By ensuring a 5% margin on the CRE11 with our ci230 bench before taking it to the laboratory, we easily achieved certification. We have therefore also made substantial gains in terms of the number of lab sessions required and, above all, in significantly reducing the time to market.”

“We make it a point of honour to accompany our customers throughout their use of our ci230 test bench in an interactive way. Training does not take long from the very beginning and a one-hour training session is enough for users to launch a full test session for themselves,” Cilab managing director Alfred Binder adds.

Cilab will be demonstrating its EMVCo PCD test benches, its EMVCo PICC, NFC Forum and ISO testing suites, and its ci200 solution for PCD and PICC production quality control and card pre-personalisation at Trustech 2022 at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles in France on 29-30 November and 1 December.

Mikroelektronika accelerates contactless payment terminal certification with Cilab’s ci230 test suite was written by Tom Phillips and published by NFCW.

Each of NFCW’s Contactless World Congress events in 2023 will include a supplier showcase session that will let readers discover the latest products and services from across the contactless ecosystem — just like they would when visiting the exhibition floor at a physical event. Here’s how it works and how you can take part.

Our supplier showcase sessions bring the exhibition floor to the main conference stage for a ‘quick fire’ series of product presentations and demos that replace the need for attendees to travel to a physical event to learn about new contactless products and services.

“Just like at a physical trade show, where attendees are able to mix listening to conference presentations with visiting the show floor to discover new products and services, Contactless World Congress attendees will also be able to achieve both these goals,” NFCW Editor Sarah Clark says.

“This is crucial at a time where willingness to travel to physical events is lower than it was pre-Covid due to travel budgets being cut, reluctance to travel for health reasons and the sheer business efficiency of conducting supplier research on one’s own timetable from one’s own desk.

“And, because it’s online, it’s also highly cost-efficient. Our exhibitors are able to reach a massive, highly targeted audience all year round for less than the cost of exhibiting at just one small physical event a year.”

NFCW Expo exhibitors and Contactless World Congress partners and sponsors are eligible to present their contactless products and services during our supplier showcase sessions at no extra cost. If you haven’t yet signed up, you can find out how to exhibit, sponsor or partner here or email sales@nfcw.com to find out more.

The NFCW team looks forward to showcasing your contactless products and services in 2023!

NFCW invites readers to showcase their contactless products and services at Contactless World Congress was written by Mike Clark and published by NFCW.

Transport for London (TfL) is planning to integrate its Oyster closed-loop transit card into an account-based ticketing system for contactless fare payments as part of a network-wide scheme to upgrade its revenue collection system, according to a call for competition issued by the transit agency’s trading arm, Transport Trading Ltd.

The upgrade — known as Project Proteus — will also include “allowing the interchangeable use of payment devices” by linking a passenger’s chosen payment card to mobile devices, the replacement of validation readers and other hardware and the introduction of “potential future revenue collection services (and the provision of associated systems and ancillary services)” such as “new emerging forms of mobility including micro-mobility, Mobility-as-a- Service, new ticketing and fare payment solutions and commercial revenue collection data”.

The call for competition also reveals that TfL is in “ongoing discussions” with the UK’s Department for Transport about a separate project which “seeks to extend contactless pay-as-you-go [ticketing] to stations in the broader south-east of England around London”.

Key changes

“During the life of the Proteus Contract, we anticipate that there will be a number of changes,” the call for competition says.

“The key planned changes expected to be delivered during the Proteus Contract term include: 

• Hina Rail Reader Rollout: The Hina Rail Readers will be manufactured, tested and be readily available for the Proteus Contractor to implement onto the rail estate;
• Payment Account Reference (PAR): This is a unique identifier associated with a specific cardholder PAN and this change will follow-on from the Hina reader deployment and will involve the Proteus Contractor. This change will allow us to link mobile devices with the payment card, allowing the interchangeable use of payment devices;
• Account Based Ticketing/FTP5: This is our programme that will make Oyster an account-based system. Initially, this is likely to be a proof of concept involving design and back-office development work which we will lead on. Once the Proteus Contractor is in place, we will engage with developing the wider proposition to develop the system wide solution. This change will involve significant upgrade to our retail assets, changes to the reader to support the new risk management models, changes to the RID software as well as decommissioning the legacy Oyster system;
• Revenue Inspection Device (RID) Replacement and Enhancement: This is the replacement of the current handheld device for revenue inspection. It is expected to be a broadly like-for-like device upgrade to the Android platform device. We expect the next device may need to additionally include the ability to check barcode tickets.”

TfL is planning to award the contract in August 2024 with an initial duration of seven years and the option to extend it to 12 years. There is an initial seven-year budget of £800m (US$951m) and a total 12-year budget of £1.5bn (US$1.8bn), according to the call for competition. 

TfL revealed in November 2020 that it is planning to integrate its Oyster transit card and contactless fare payment systems.

Transport for London sets out plans for next generation transport ticketing solution was written by Tom Phillips and published by NFCW.

Football fans attending the FIFA World Cup in Qatar will be able to authenticate payments for purchases at three coffee outlets with their face using biometric facial biometric technology being piloted by Visa and Qatar National Bank and apply for a digital prepaid card with animated card art that will be issued instantly to Visa cardholders.

Visa is piloting the two solutions as part of a wider rollout of payments technology at the international tournament that also includes enabling merchants and taxi drivers to accept contactless payments on a standard Android NFC smartphone with Visa’s Tap to Phone software point-of-sale solution.

The pilot will mark the first time that facial recognition technology has been used for payments in Qatar and will allow consumers to “authenticate payments using just their face without a physical card or mobile phone after initial enrolment. It will be piloted at three Flat White Speciality Coffee branches,” Visa says.

The digital card issuance solution will also be trialled with “limited cardholders in Doha”, enabling participants to apply by scanning a QR code, receive the digital prepaid card instantly on approval and store the card in their mobile wallet.

“The digital card will feature animated card art with the official mascot La’eeb, demonstrating a future in which consumers could bring greater personalisation and even digital animation to their Visa cards,” the card network explains.

“As FIFA’s long-standing partner, Visa wants to give football fans from around the world the best way to pay in Qatar while experiencing exciting new innovations,” Visa’s Saeeda Jaffar adds.

“With thousands of contactless payment terminals, FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 promises to be the most payment-enabled FIFA tournament ever.”

Visa unveiled its Tap to Phone solution in January 2020 and added Tap to Phone contactless payment acceptance for taxi drivers in Hong Kong in June this year.

Visa to pilot biometric payments and instant digital prepaid card issuance at World Cup in Qatar was written by Tom Phillips and published by NFCW.

The PCI Security Standards Council has published a flexible modular standard for accepting payments on a smartphone or other commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) mobile device that supports a variety of payment acceptance channels and customer verification methods including software point-of-sale (sPOS) contactless acceptance solutions.

The PCI Mobile Payments on COTS (MPoC) standard incorporates elements of the existing PCI Software-based PIN entry on COTS (SPoC) and PCI Contactless Payments on COTS (CPoC) standards but also “aims to provide flexibility not only in how payments are accepted, but in how COTS-based payment acceptance solutions can be developed, deployed and maintained” in order to extend the range of authorised use cases and solution architectures.

“Many of the requirements within the standard will be familiar to those who were already working with the existing PCI SPoC and PCI CPoC standards; however, MPoC is structured to provide a separation of the ‘technical’ or ‘development’ aspects from the ‘operational’ aspects,” the PCI says.

“This allows for MPoC to add flexibility by creating the ability to address market needs which may otherwise have been infeasible under existing PCI SPoC or PCI CPoC programs.

“Vendors of card-present payment acceptance technologies and solutions will be interested in the PCI MPoC standard as it may provide new types of solutions for them to address in their markets.

“Similarly, entities who deploy or use terminals — acquirers and merchants — may be interested to see what controls are put into place to secure the technologies they may well be using next year and into the future.”

The PCI MPoC standard is available now with a programme guide due to be published “in the coming months”.

“The official release of the MPoC standard is a great opportunity for the payment acceptance industry. The merchants are going to accept card present payment transactions from any amount using an off-the-shelf contactless device, without being limited in volumes,” Dejamobile CTO Ahmad Saif told NFCW.

“New use cases are allowed such as online PIN and offline transactions. Moreover, MPoC introduces a modular approach where individual components can be certified. This paves the way to a lighter integration work and a shortened time-to-market for the products.

“We are proud to have contributed to this specification as an active member of the Mobile Task Force of PCI SSC. More particularly, as a leading SoftPOS solution provider, we are looking forward to further supporting the development of this innovative technology worldwide.”

The PCI published its SPoC standard in January 2018 and its CPoC standard in December 2019.

PCI publishes MPoC standard to support evolution of contactless payment acceptance solutions on standard NFC mobile devices was written by Tom Phillips and published by NFCW.

Fitbit users are now able to add Google Wallet to Sense 2 and Versa 4 smartwatches and then use their wearable to make contactless payments in 45 countries, including 12 countries where Google Wallet is now available for the first time.

Users in the twelve new countries can make contactless payments and store debit and credit cards, tickets and passes on their Android NFC smartphones and Wear OS smartwatches as well as on a compatible Fitbit device.

The new territories are Armenia, Cayman Islands, Cyprus, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Slovenia, Thailand and Vietnam. 

Google has added them to its list of countries where Google Wallet can be used along with Malaysia – where the service also went live this week – and details of where it is available on Fitbit devices.

At launch Google Wallet has rolled out with support for Mastercard and Visa cards issued by: 

• ACBA Bank, Ameriabank, Ardshinbank, Armeconombank, Converse Bank and Evocabank in Armenia, Butterfield in the Cayman Islands;
• Airwallex, Alpha Bank, Bank of Cyprus, Curve, Hellenic Bank, Monavate, Payhawk, PayrNet, Paysafe, Paysend, Profee, SumUp, Viva Wallet and Wise in Cyprus;
• Bank of Georgia, Credo Bank, Basisbank, Halyk Bank, Liberty Bank, Pasha Bank, ProCredit Bank, Space Bank, TBC Bank and Terabank in Georgia;
• Bakai Bank, Bai-Tushum Bank, Commercial Bank, Halyk Bank and RSK Bank in Kyrgyzstan;
• Cornèr Banca, Curve, Monavate, PayrNet, Paysafe and Wise in Liechtenstein;
• Advanzia, Curve, Monavate, Payhawk, PayrNet, Paysafe, Paysend, SumUp, Viva Wallet and Wise in Luxembourg.
• Airwallex, Curve, Monavate, PayrNet, Paysafe, Paysend, SumUp, Viva Wallet and Wise in Malta; 
• Banco Inbursa, Banorte, Banregio, Hey Banco and Nu Mexico in Mexico; 
• Banka Intesa Sanpaolo, Curve, Mbills, Monavate, PayrNet, Paysafe, Paysend, SumUp and Wise in Slovenia;
• Bangkok Bank and Krungthai Bank in Thailand;
• Asia Commercial Bank, Sacombank, Shinhan Bank, Tieng Phong Bank, Vietcombank, Vietnam Prosperity Bank and Vietnam Technological and Commercial Bank in Vietnam.

Google Wallet began rolling out in 39 countries in July and expanded to a further six in August.

• NFCW maintains a list of major OEM Pay systems and the territories where they are live and available for public use.

Google Wallet arrives on Fitbit devices and expands to 12 more countries was written by Tom Phillips and published by NFCW.