NFC news in brief • 31 Jan 2011
News in brief from the NFC world and beyond: Getyoo pings Belgacom • Mobey Forum expands • Clear2Pay goes to South Africa • Facebook takes the credit • Vancouver to go contactless • …and Philadelphia to follow • Airtel Money launch • CreditCall’s EMV ticketing kernel.
PINGPING DEAL: 'The aim is to accustom people to using NFC technology,' says Getyoo
GETYOO PINGS BELGACOM: PingPing, the contactless sticker-based mobile payments service run by Belgian mobile network operator Belgacom, has signed a deal with NFC social networking and tag reading specialist Getyoo. The new deal lets PingPing users register their interest in finding out more about products and services by simply waving their mobile contactless tags over a standard reader. They then retrieve information at a later date by visiting Getyoo’s website and typing in the number of their tag. “The aim is to accustom people to using NFC technology so that once NFC phones enter the Belgian market we would already have a lot people used to it and many NFC systems and readers would be already set up in shops or on events,” says Getyoo.
MOBEY FORUM EXPANDS: Bank of America, BNP Paribas and PostFinance have become the latest organisations to join Mobey Forum, the non profit mobile financial services association.
CLEAR2PAY GOES TO SA: Clear2Pay has won a contract from Techso, the company appointed by South Africa’s National Department of Transport (NDOT) to implement contactless bank card payments for the country’s public transport infrastructure. Clear2Pay will develop functional test solutions for the public transport-specific EMV contactless cards and payment terminals and will deploy a certification laboratory in Cape Town, enabling banks and third party vendors to locally qualify their cards and devices.
FACEBOOK TAKES THE CREDIT: Social networking giant Facebook has made it mandatory for all games developers using the platform to accept payments using the company’s own in-house virtual currency, Facebook Credits, from 1 July. Facebook Credits currently lets people enter their payment information once and allows them to buy, earn and spend safely across lots of different games, the company explains.
VANCOUVER TO GO CONTACTLESS… TransLink, the Greater Vancouver transit authority, has awarded a US0 million contract to Cubic Transportation Systems to deliver and operate a new contactless fare payment and revenue management system for the region’s rail, bus, ferry and other services. The new system will support the acceptance of bank cards “and other media that meet contactless technology standards,” says Cubic. “Faregates will require all customers to present their contactless smart or bank card to a reader to enter the paid areas of the transit stations prior to boarding the trains.”
…AND PHILADELPHIA TO FOLLOW: The board of SEPTA, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, has given formal permission for the authority to borrow up to US5million to fund a new open transport ticketing system. The new system will allow customers to pay for travel on SEPTA trains, buses and trolleys using bank cards, mobile devices and other “emerging ‘smart’ technologies” and is expected to go live in three years time.
AIRTEL MONEY LAUNCH: Indian mobile operator Bharti Airtel has begun offering a new Airtel Money account, PC World reports. Customers in the city of Gurgaon, near Delhi, are the first to get the new service which the company plans to extend to other cities in the near future. Customers can deposit cash into their Airtel Money account at authorised retail locations and, via a Bharti Airtel app on their mobile phone, make payments at shops, book movies tickets and pay utility bills.
EMV TICKETING KERNEL: UK based CreditCall has introduced Contactless.LIB, an EMV contactless kernel supporting MasterCard‘s PayPass M/Chip and M/Stripe technology and Visa‘s qVSDC and MSD. “The first deployment of Contactless.LIB is likely to be in the transportation ticketing sector, where there are a number of developers working on adding contactless capability to existing ITSO ticketing equipment and terminals,” says the company.
This article was first published at www.NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com.
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