The smart card industry is dominated by three major players — Gemalto, Oberthur and Giesecke & Devrient (G&D)— with each jockeying for peak position to capture the market. A recent report from Frost & Sullivan reveals the current state of the market and the moves being made by its top competitors. Gemalto, who is widely [...]

SmartDebit, the UK direct debit payment processor, has responded to the recent news that one million bus journeys in London have been paid for using a contactless debit, credit or charge card. According to Transport for London (TfL), up to 10,000 people per day are using their contactless card to pay for a fare in [...]

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) is meeting to address the growing number of privacy concerns circulating around the Clipper card, the reloadable contactless smart card used for electronic transit fare payment in the San Francisco Bay Area. According to the San Francisco Examiner, the duration for which regional officials can keep personal information obtained by [...]

Mobile aggregator txtNation has partnered with RapidNFC — Europe’s largest provider of NFC tags and related products— to launch a solution that supports direct carrier billing using NFC. The Payforit service will enable users to tap their NFC-enabled device to a specified tag, launching a personalized interface. This interface will then allow for one-click payment [...]

Quatro Card Technology, a Canada-based full-line card manufacturer, has purchased the Atlantic Zeiser CHIPLINE high-speed RFID and smart card contactless personalization system to provide high-volume personalization of contactless RFID and smart cards, and to address the fast-growing EMV market. CHIPLINE combines electrical and drop-on-demand graphical personalization in one fully integrated system, rather than requiring separate [...]

CARTES America is gearing up for this year’s annual exhibition and conference in Las Vegas, where it will focus on topics, trends and technologies – among them the discussion on the future of contactless payment for open-loop transit in the United States. In “Open-Loop in U.S. Transportation Systems”, a new white paper now exclusively available [...]

Lenovo plans to add NFC technology to its line of ThinkPads, reports Pocket-Lint. The NFC capability will allow users to use contactless credit credit cards to tap their card to the device to pay for items they purchase online. Lenovo made the announcement at the Engadget Expand conference. It plans to add NFC to some [...]

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) is working to procure a system that would simplify the process of paying for bus or train fare, turning it into a tap of a smart phone or credit card at a turnstile. According to Transportation Nation, Metro is now accepting bids from tech companies to develop a [...]

There is a strong potential for growth in electronic payment methods in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) region, as 10% of all transactions are paid for electronically compared to 15% globally. MasterCard reports the UAE currently has 1,000 contactless terminals and Qatar has 500 terminals, compared to two years ago when there were none in [...]

NXP and Gemalto have been awarded first place rankings within ABI Research’s latest transportation and ticketing smart cards and ICs Competitive Assessment. The ABI assessment consists of full year 2011 and first half 2012 market shares and two vendor matrices, one for secure ICs and the other smart card vendors. The Competitive Assessment provides a [...]