“An Australian parliamentary committee has held a public hearing at which it heard evidence from representatives of leading Australian banks, payment services providers and other financial bodies on regulatory issues including whether companies such as Apple should be mandated to allow third-party payment apps access to a smartphone’s NFC chip.”

“Consumers in Poland will soon be able to use their Android NFC device to make tokenized contactless payments at the point of sale (POS) directly from their bank account via their mobile banking app without needing a debit or credit card. Polish mobile payments service provider Blik is making the contactless functionality available in the apps of six of the 17 banks that support its mobile payments solution.”

“The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) is calling for amendments to current European Union legislation in order to ensure companies such as Apple provide payment apps with access to a smartphone’s NFC chip to give users a choice of in-store payment methods on their device.   The call comes as ACM completes its investigation into whether restricting access to a device’s NFC chip constitutes a breach of competition rules .”

“The NFC Forum has released two specifications that set out a standardised cryptographic framework for enabling secure data transfer between NFC mobile devices and the development of applications using a secure communications channel between paired NFC devices.”

“Apple Store customers may soon be able to receive enhanced custom notifications for subscription services including Apple Arcade, Apple TV+ and Apple Music by tapping in-store NFC tags. The NFC tags and QR codes currently deployed in some Apple Store outlets redirect customers to the landing page of Apple service apps, but the iOS 14.5 system update now available to developers in beta incorporates “a new kind of notification to promote Apple’s subscription services,” according to 9to5 Mac .”

“Fifteen US universities have signed up to integrate their student ID cards with Google Pay, enabling staff and students to make payments and access facilities and residence halls with their Android NFC phone.”

“Shoppers can scan the tags with their mobile phones to easily find out more about products on sale. Soon, they will also be able to use them to add items to a virtual shopping basket and then check out and pay with their mobile phone. Modern Retail Collective is a “fully technology enabled” bricks-and-mortar store operated by management consultants McKinsey & Company in Mall of America , a 2.8m square foot (266,500sqm) shopping centre in Bloomington, Minnesota. The store is designed to give retailers and brands an opportunity to test dozens of new technologies, McKinsey says.”

“A new feature in Android 10 will make it possible for consumers to choose whether or not they wish to be able to make NFC card emulation transactions without first unlocking their device. The function will be available for “off-host card emulation” payment and transit transactions that make use of a secure element on the phone, Google says.”

““Customers will be able to purchase Pingit’s newly released range of fashion and lifestyle accessories embedded with payment capabilities, from key fobs to wearable payment bands to The Loop — a holder to add a payment chip to an existing watch or fitness band,” the bank says.”

“No sooner than Apple announced iOS 13 with enhanced Core NFC read/write support than developers are quickly preparing to use it. Engadget Japan and Nikkei both report that the Japanese government will add support for iPhone NFC tag reading Individual Number Cards this fall. Individual Number Cards are a fairly recent development for the Japanese national and local governments to gradually tie various social services and income tax filing to a single personal ID number for better management and control. It’s evolving into a general purpose national ID card.”

“iPhone users will soon be able to read a full array of ISO 7816 contactless smartcards and tags, including passports, transit and access cards, Apple has revealed. “However, for the time being, reading payment cards will not be supported.” Gordon Scott from the Apple NFC Software team revealed the information during a WWDC 19 session on the company’s latest Core NFC framework enhancements.”

“Support for NFC mobile ticketing forms part of SafeTix, a new Ticketmaster service that the company said “leverages new technology to give event owners control over their tickets by tying a unique, identifiable digital ticket to each fan’s mobile phone through an encrypted barcode that automatically refreshes every few seconds”.”

“Right now, physical Apple Pay transactions require bulky terminals like those you find at retail store checkouts. With the new support, an iPhone will know how to read a specially-encoded NFC tag (that can be as inert as a sticker) and automatically show the Apple Pay purchase interface when a user holds their device near it. No third-party apps or other set up required. The obvious example is a user can ad-hoc top up their miles on a hired electric scooter simply by tapping their phone or watch to a NFC sticker on the bike. For Bonobos, it will enable simpler self-service shopping with the ability to place NFC tags directly onto clothing rails. The new Apple Pay features will be rolling out later this year, presumably with more partners onboard now that the news is public. This is yet another step towards Apple’s goal of replacing the wallet.”

“Apple’s VP of Apple Pay Jennifer Bailey today announced a new NFC feature for iPhone: special tags that trigger Apple Pay purchases when tapped, without the need to download a special app first. The company is partnering with Bird scooters, Bonobos clothing store, and PayByPhone parking meters for the initial rollout. Apple also announced that inside the Wallet app, users will soon be able to sign up for loyalty cards in one tap, presumably presented to users as recommendations when they make eligible purchases.”

“Garment manufacturer Bonobos, parking meter management firm PayByPhone and scooter rental startup Bird are all working with NFC tags to eliminate the app-enrolment process, Bailey said. Bird and PayByPhone are running pilots and Bonobos is adding NFC tags to merchandise displayed in its showrooms, enabling shoppers to try items on in store and then easily order them for shipment to their home. Dairy Queen, Dave & Buster’s and Caribou Coffee are all set to launch services later this year that use NFC tags to make it easy for customers to sign up for their loyalty programmes, Bailey added.”

“The UK Home Office has been in talks with Apple to extend the capability of the NFC chip to reading passports so that a smartphone app used to verify the identity of EU citizens applying to continue to live in the UK after it leaves the EU can be used on iPhones.”

“NMT “enables the transfer of money either between two persons or between a person and a merchant,” STMicroelectronics’ Daniel Orsatti adds. “The idea is to have a very simple way to do it by just using an app. “The starting point was to define an NFC solution able to replace existing QR code solutions in Asia which require additional actions from the user to pre-select the right payment app and then to activate and place the camera in the correct position.”

“Our new component will officially launch early next year, but we are already previewing it during the event because the upcoming protocol will bring serious changes to the way manufacturers certify their terminals and vendors accept payments. It was thus important for us to put our partners at ease by demonstrating how we already tackled the new challenges inherent to the EMVCo 3.0 certification.”

“UK challenger bank Monzo has rolled out a service allowing customers to collect digital receipts and loyalty rewards within its app. Customers are able to track what they have bought in real time from participating retailers, including Eat, Costa Coffee, Itsu, Pod and Pure.”