Radio Frequency Technology

New technical specifications for so-called near-field communication (NFC), released this week by an international rules-setting body backing the technology, should add momentum in the U.S. to the trend toward contactless payments on mobile phones. “A lot's happening behind closed doors,” says Erik Michielsen, director of RFID and M2M research at …

The Utah Transit Authority in November will begin accepting contactless payment tokens in a pilot project that will represent the first use of contactless technology to process bus fares in the U.S. The Salt Lake City-based transit agency in September will begin equipping 41 buses that ferry passengers to local …

The chief executive of the company holding the largest market share of installed readers for contactless payments predicts the technology, assisted by near-field communication (NFC) capability, will move rapidly from the physical point of sale to e-commerce. Mohammad Khan, president and founder of ViVOtech Inc., which makes electronic wallets for …

Seeking to remove a roadblock standing in the way to eventual mass consumer usage of mobile phones equipped with a form of contactless technology called near-field communication (NFC), MasterCard International this week unveiled a service that will allow cell-phone users to download their account data and other critical information to …

Shipments of contactless-payment transponders–the cards, keyfobs, and other devices consumers use to make radio-wave payments at the point of sale?will explode in 2006, reaching 45 million units, up from 13 million last year, according to ABI Research, an Oyster Bay, N.Y., research firm that follows radio-frequency-identification technology markets. Most of …

For all the progress banks and merchants have made so far with contactless payments, further success is threatened by inconsistent approval criteria for components ranging from chips to readers, an expert in radio-frequency-based payment warns. That inconsistency, he says, is driving up costs and breeding frustration among vendors. “It's just …

Citigroup Inc.'s Citibank, which last year announced it would issue contactless tokens linked to customers' credit and debit card accounts in the New York metropolitan area, is now allowing those devices to be used in a test of radio-frequency-based electronic fare payments by the Metropolitan Transit Authority's MTA New York …

Accelitec Inc., a Seattle-based company that last year launched a contactless-payment system aimed at merchants rather than banks, says it is preparing for expansion this year by smoothing integration with existing merchant networks. The company's PayPilot product is in beta with an unidentified merchant, and officials say they expect to …

Projected pilots in 2006 for contactless payment capability on mobile phones with near-field communication (NFC) technology will include high-throughput retail stores, in contrast to the self-contained environment of a sports stadium, where the first such trial began last week (Digital Transactions News, Dec. 14). Tom Zalewski, head of mobile payment …

An Omaha, Neb.-based maker of biometrically secured identity cards says it expects to participate in contactless-payment pilots within three months, with a commercial rollout possible by mid-2006. Five-year-old Digital Defense Group says its credit-card-size token, which contains a fingerprint sensor and an RFID chip, is compliant with MasterCard International's PayPass …