NFCW

A new cross-industry initiative to add a universal layer of trust to the internet we know today has been launched by DITC Labs, a multidisciplinary digital economy think tank established by NFCW founder Sarah Clark. The Trustnet is made possible by a new, standardizable mechanism that unlocks the opportunity to provide consumers with simpler and safer ways to navigate our digital world — and for businesses to build innovative new business models upon it.

“India’s SoftPOS market is set to outpace global averages, driven by government initiatives, UPI integration, and a robust fintech ecosystem,” Worldline India reports in a new study which also predicts that more than half of all transactions in the Asia-Pacific region will be contactless this year.

“Brands traditionally focus on how to increase customer lifetime value — the total revenue they extract from a single customer over time,” Bain & Company explains in a new report on digital product passport business models.

Global contactless payment transaction values will increase from US$7.7tn in 2025 to US$18.1tn in 2030, a rise of 106%, market analysts Juniper Research predict. NFC ticketing and the arrival of open NFC wallets on Apple devices will be the two key growth drivers, the analysts say. “The fastest growing contactless payment mechanism driving this expansion is Near-field Communication (NFC) ticketing; projected to grow by 300% over the next five years,” they say.

Five years after it first began partnering with police departments and charities across the UK to provide dementia patients with NFC wristbands, Seritag has launched a new service that can be used by anyone with a health condition to easily communicate vital information to anyone with an NFC mobile phone in case of emergency.

Passengers using taxi services provided by Abu Dhabi-based Tawasul Transport can now take part in a pilot test of a new service that lets customers use their mobile phone to pay for their fares via AE Coin, a government-regulated stablecoin pegged to the United Arab Emirates’ dirham currency. The pilot is being conducted in collaboration with Al Maryah Community Bank (Mbank) and is being coordinated by the Abu Dhabi Department of Municipalities and Transport’s Integrated Transport Center (ITC).

Customers of City Bank have become the first in Bangladesh to be able to use Google Pay to make payments at contactless POS terminals with their Android NFC smartphone. The move marks the first time that Google Wallet and Google Pay have been available in Bangladesh. Apple Pay is not yet available in the country, which has a population of 175.6m.

The US state of Iowa has added support for Google Wallet to its mobile driver’s license program, enabling holders to store their digital ID in their Google Wallet rather than having to store it in a dedicated Iowa Mobile ID app.

Two of Europe’s leading mobile payments groups have signed a collaboration deal that aims to make it possible for European citizens to use their preferred domestic payment brand to make and receive payments both online and in-store anywhere in Europe. The two parties to the deal are EPI, the European Payments Initiative, and the European Payments Alliance (EuroPA). EPI is the bank-led organisation responsible for building Wero, a unified mobile payments service for Europe.

Alipay has announced that it has successfully conducted its first e-wallet transaction to use augmented reality smart glasses and is to roll out support for the technology to its 36 digital wallet partners around the world this year. The successful first transaction was conducted in Hong Kong using a pair of Meizu StarV Snap smart glasses linked to the AlipayHK mobile payment app. Augmented reality payments will also go live in China this month, via a partnership with smart glasses maker Rokid.