Contactless Smart Cards, RFID, Payment, Transit and Security

Canadian NFC trial complete

Thursday, April 16, 2009

MasterCard Canada, in partnership with Citi Cards Canada and Bell Mobility, has completed the first near-field communications trial of Mobile PayPass in Canada. This was the first trial in Canada to use Bell Mobility’s wireless network enabling participants to make purchases using their mobile device at MasterCard PayPass acceptance locations across Canada.


The four-month closed trial took place at Bell Mobility’s Creekbank office in Ontario and approximately 75 employees from Bell, Citi Cards and MasterCard participated. The average transaction amount during the trial was just under $20, which is ideal for merchants in high-volume, small-ticket purchase businesses.

The PayPass payment application is stored inside the NFC-capable mobile phone’s built-in “secure area.” Users have individual control of the payment application in the phone’s secure area. The PayPass payment application on these phones can also be password protected so that a lost or stolen handset cannot be used to make payments. [end] 

Superdrug, one of Britain’s largest beauty and health retailers, has introduced contactless payment for its in-store customers, according to Retail Gazette.

Created by Streamline and Visa Europe, the contactless system will enable customers to make payments of up to £15 (approx. USD $23) by simply waving their contactless bank card at the more than 50 participating Superdrug stores in London and Liverpool.

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la Caixa and Visa Europe have begun rolling out their contactless payment system in Barcelona. The bank is set to make all cards and point-of-sale across Barcelona contactless, requiring the distribution of 1 million cards and more than 15,000 new POS terminals.

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Globus Supermarkets in the Czech Republic has plans to equip all of its stores with contactless point-of-sale (POS) terminals, following a successful NFC payments trail conducted in conjunction with Telefónica O2, Komerční Banka, Citibank and Visa Europe.

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Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy’s largest financial institution, has begun a commercial trial of SIM-based NFC mobile payments, reports NFC World.

The service, dubbed “Move and Pay,” is being tested among 600 Intesa Sanpaolo employees and customers in Milan and Turin, as well as by two academic institutions: The Polytechnic Institute of Milan and Turin ISMB.

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German bank, Sparkasse will pilot contactless payments for its bank credit card users, reports Venture Village.

Locations in Hannover, Braunschweig and Wolfsburg will be some of the first for the trial, which begins in April. More than 1.3 million customers will receive the new bank cards complete with contactless functionality.

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CBP denies report

A Canadian man uses a scanned image of his passport from his iPad to get past Customer and Border Protection officials, according to a report from the AP.

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