“Each partner is collaborating with Thinfilm to bring Thinfilm-validated, enterprise-ready NFC readers to the market and help position NFC as an enabling technology for a range of applications within the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) space,” reads a formal media announcement.

We’re told that together, these partnerships allow enterprises to easily integrate Thinfilm NFC technology with installed desktop, embedded, and mobile infrastructure, including iOS (iPhone, iPad) and Android devices.

“Just as brand marketers use NFC to add smartphone interactivity to everyday consumer products, industrial users can use NFC to streamline factory operations and protect supply chains,” said Davor Sutija, Thinfilm’s CEO. “Thinfilm’s technology partnerships with Socket Mobile, Famoco, and SpringCard – established leaders in the NFC reader hardware space – allow industrial users to implement NFC at any stage of operations while leveraging deployed IT infrastructure. This simplifies the creation of turnkey systems that will expand the basic IIoT into a comprehensive ‘Industrial Internet of Everything’.”

The post NFC Mobile Marketing Leader Touts New Partnerships appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

The program, launching later this fall at select Chevron stations in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, will offer consumers “a simple and more secure way to pay at the pump with a range of mobile payment services.”

Already, an estimated 80 percent of Chevron customers in the U.S. pay for gas at the pump using a credit or debit card.
“Mobile payments are moving into the mainstream in the U.S. because, more and more, consumers see the value of using their personal devices to purchase everyday items like groceries and gas,” said Jim McCarthy, executive vice president of innovation and strategic partnerships at Visa Inc. “Chevron has always focused on giving their customers great experiences by offering convenient ways to pay and being committed to protecting against fraud. For this reason, they are who we want to help us broaden both the reach, and consumer understanding of the many mobile payment options in the market today.”

The post Pumping Up Mobile: Visa and Chevron Bring Mobile Payments to the Pump appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

The patent was filed in February 2010 and was awarded by the US Patent Trademark Office this July.

As people put more trust in the use of mobile phones for payment, mobile wallets are creating new market opportunities. XIUS mobile payments solution is powered by NFC and other technologies. The solution taps into the existing mobile ecosystem and extends banking services to the unbanked and under-banked segments of the population that banks are otherwise challenged to penetrate.

NFC technology allows retailers and brands to engage with mobile consumers, improve in-store experiences, enable touch and go payments, generate more sales, and enhance customer loyalty and trust.

XIUS NFC-based payment solution also delivers control of purchase flow to the merchant.

As of this writing, XIUS mobile payments solutions manage over $1 billion worth of payment transactions monthly and the mobile infrastructure solutions process and manage in excess of 350 million calls a day.

The post XIUS Awarded NFC Patent by USPTO appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

On Tuesday, the company announced that customers can start using Apple Pay to make payments with a single touch.

GameStop is bringing Apple Pay to its more than 4,200 U.S. video game stores this month.

As Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed Monday, Apple Pay is already available through more than 700,000 retail locations nationwide.

“We are excited to make it easier and more convenient for our customers to shop at GameStop,” said Jason Cochran, senior vice president of U.S. stores at GameStop. “Providing a positive, memorable customer experience is our top priority. Incorporating the latest in mobile technology, like Apple Pay, into our stores is another way we are offering customers options to help simplify their purchases.”

Apple Pay works with the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and the Apple Watch, which launches in April.

The post No Stopping Apple Pay: GameStop Gets in the Mobile Payments Game appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

According to financial professionals at work on necessary conversions, a mere 50 percent (approximately) of the 12 million merchant payment terminals in the U.S. will meet mandates to accept more secure smart credit and debit cards and NFC-ready smartphones by the end of 2015.

The need to convert to more secure systems is due to the high rate of fraud associated with the old magnetic stripe credit card technology still rampant in the U.S.

Though Matt Barr, MasterCard’s senior vice president of U.S. emerging payments, has opined that the current rate of smart card adoption in the country is “impressive” and has “very exciting momentum,” others beg to differ.

According to Jordan McKee, an analyst at 451 Research, recently lamented that the U.S. lags the rest of the world in smart card use.

“Everybody is so behind now [in converting to smart card payments] and it’s bad,” McKee said. “It’s definitely a far-reaching issue, and it’s not just the fault of merchants, but also point-of-sale terminal suppliers and others.”

The Payments Security Task Force, a group of companies integrally involved with electronic payment systems, has predicted that just 47 percent of U.S. merchant terminals will be enabled for chip technology in cards and smartphones by the close of 2015.

“In the past year, U.S. banks have issued more of these secure smart cards, often called chip cards, to their card users in an attempt to meet an Oct. 1 deadline set by card processing companies, such as MasterCard, Visa and American Express, for payment terminals to accept smart card payments,” according to analysis by ComputerWorld. “Beyond that date, any merchant accepting a less secure method, including traditional magnetic stripe cards, will face financial liability in the event of fraud. Card users will not be liable.”

Of course, the major breach of large scale retailer payment systems — at Target and elsewhere — should have served as a “wake-up call for many merchants and banks that accept the magnetic stripe cards.” The Target breach “started a frenzy of activity” toward chip card adoption, according to McKee, who also said that before that incident, retailers largely were waiting for an extension of the October 1 deadline.

How does the new system differ?

“To make a payment, shoppers usually “dip” a chip card into a payment terminal and complete a purchase by signing their names or entering a PIN,” notes ComputerWorld. “Phones like the iPhone 6, which supports Apple Pay, include an NFC chip that can communicate by a touch with many EMV-ready terminals.”

McKee believes it will be 2017 or later before the more secure terminal penetration rate reaches 90 percent.

The post It’s Time for State of the Art Terminals: U.S. Lags On Secure Chip Cards and Payment Processing appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

In particular, payments made via Near Field Communications (NFC)-enabled mobile handsets are red hot today and projected to account for $130 Billion in worldwide consumer retail spend by 2020.

According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, this equates to 254 million mobile users making 5 payments per month at an average of just below $9 per transaction.

And, if you haven’t already guessed, Apple has played a major role in both real and projected growth for this market.

“The launch of Apple Pay is significant because it means all major smartphone vendors support NFC-based mobile payments, but it also provides a credibility boost for the NFC payments sector as a whole,” says Nitesh Patel, Director, Wireless Media Strategies. “Furthermore, continued efforts by payment networks, for example MasterCard has set a target of all MasterCard payment points supporting NFC in Europe by 2020, will be crucial in stimulating its use and adoption.”

Although “traditional forms of payment” like cash and plastic credit cards will remain dominant worldwide in the foreseeable future, mobile payments will continue to erode these payment methods through the end of the decade.

The post Worldwide Mobile NFC Payments Gunning for $130 Billion appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Underscoring the remarkable growth anticipated over the next five years, this anticipated expansion represents a significant spike over the 72 billion mCommerce transactions expected this year.

According to the report, highest growth rates are expected in the NFC sector.

Here, usage is expected to be buoyed by the launch of Apple Pay, together with a host of anticipated deployments by banks using solutions based on HCE (Host Card Emulation) technology.

Overall, the highest net increase in transaction volumes will occur in the digital goods sector, fueled by what Juniper says is a “surge in micropayments for in-app purchases, notably within arenas such as social gaming.”

The post Juniper: mCommerce Transactions Gunning for 200B By 2019 appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

According to a new report from Reuters, Apple’s adoption of Near Field Communications technology is a game-changer for the future of NFC.

“Once they saw these announcements in September they kind of realized there was no going back on this technology so they better get moving and be quick on it,” Drue Freeman, Senior Vice President for global automotive sales and marketing at NXP, is quoted by Reuters.

It’s no coincidence that the company has just introduced a new lineup of NFC components made just for automobiles.

For now, Freeman won’t confirm which car makers might be among the first to integrate the technology, but European luxury car makers could roll out the first wave of NFC-ready rides in under two years.

The post Will NFC Kill Your Car Keys? appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

And not surprisingly, Apple is expected to play a critical role in the anticipated boom.

Juniper reports this week that there will be 516 million mobile users of NFC (Near Field Communication) contactless payment services by the end of 2019.

By comparison, there will only be 101 million users at the close of 2014.

Juniper says Apple’s introduction of an NFC-based payment mechanism, Apple Pay, will “stimulate the wider marketplace, helping to address the key challenges of contactless awareness and acceptance.”

By the end of the decade, the research giant proposes, three-quarters of smartphones worldwide will contain an NFC controller chip.

Juniper’s newest whitepaper, Getting in Touch with NFC, is available to download from the Juniper website now.

To check it out, click here.

The post Juniper: NFC Payment Users to Number 500 Million by 2019 appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Chief among the new bells and whistles is that which is made possible by Dutch chipmaker NXP. The company is said to be behind iPhone 6’s NFC capabilities.

Apple has reportedly been interested in NFC since Steve Jobs was still the CEO. But only now is Apple finally ready to embrace Near Field Communications technology.

“Apple has been actively involved in making payments more convenient and streamlined for consumers who use its device,” James Wester, IDC practice director for Worldwide Payment Strategies, said last week. “Apple’s unique role as a device manufacturer, OS provider, and online retailer means Apple has the ability to impact the way payments evolve like few other companies. Merchants, issuers, processors, and other payment stakeholders will need to understand that impact and begin adjusting their investments and strategies accordingly.”

The post NFC Inbound for iPhone 6 appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.