Confidex, a supplier of contactless smart tickets, announced that its tickets are now fully implemented on the RET (Rotterdamse Elektrische Tram) public transportation system in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Confidex supplies the public transpiration system with roughly five million contactless smart tickets with NXP MIFARE Ultralight IC per year. The extended memory of contactless tickets enables RET to set pricing policies which adapt to passenger needs and extend the number of possible fare combinations.

Read the full article at ContactlessNews…

Celebrating the 150th Anniversary of the London Underground, Cubic Transportation Systems was recently among the small group of Transport for London (TfL) partners invited to meet Her Majesty The Queen.

During the March 20 visit, Her Majesty visited Baker Street Underground Station accompanied by His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh and Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge. The Royal party was introduced to key London Underground staff, apprentices and suppliers involved in the restoration of an 1892 underground coach that was a highlight of January’s commemorative steam run.

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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 smaller machines. With its patented high-speed rotational “wheel” technology, the system can produce up to 25,000 cards per hour. It can also connect to external personalization management server systems for efficient variable data processing.

Read the full article at ContactlessNews…

Radio Prague reports that this week, police in Prague indicted 11 members of the city council, including Mayor Bohuslav Svoboda, over charges that they engaged in infringement of competition regulations and breach of trust with regards to the city’s Opencard smart card system.

Prague’s Opencard system can be used throughout the city for travel, libraries and other services. The system has faced criticism from the outset, particularly over its cost of CZK 1.25 billion (over $60 million).

Read the full article at ContactlessNews…

H2 Bike Run, a gym and bike club for cyclists and runners commuting to work in London’s Soho district, has installed more than 1,400 lockers all equipped with smart electronic locks from SALTO to provide secure storage.

SALTO installed its SALTO XS4 Locker Locks, integrated with SALTO’s access control system designed to meet all of the security demands of the locker room environment at H2 Bike Run.

H2 Bike Run offers 300 secure bike parking spaces inside the building on Josta racks together with more than 40 luxury showers, changing facilities for both men and women, sports therapy, a laundry service, bike servicing, retail accessories and repairs and a small gym.

Read the full article at ContactlessNews…

The modern credential has evolved significantly over time and as advancements in technologies are made so too do advancements in security.

Robert Lemley, director of Software Development as CBORD, sheds some light on the history of the modern credential detailing the pros and cons of the various methods of authentication ranging from the barcode to the latest smart card offerings.

Watch the video

German technology company Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) has won a contract from the government of the Macau Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China to produce its new multifunction contactless smart ID cards. G&D will be the primary contractor on this project and will have responsibility for the project’s management, smart card application development and modifications to the existing infrastructure to enable support for the new technology.

Macau’s government opted for a secure contactless system to help speed up transactions, particularly in terms of people traveling between the region, Hong Kong and China.

Read the full article at ContactlessNews…

Z Energy, a New Zealand-based oil company, announced a partnership with Visa to offer a faster, more convenient payment option for customers to pay for gas and other goods at its many service stations dispersed across the country.

The technology will enable customers to make purchases under NZ$80 without the need to sign or use their PIN. Customers simply wave their Visa payWave-enabled credit or debit card in front of the payment terminal at the checkout to complete their transaction.

Read the full article at ContactlessNews…

ReportsnReports announced its latest research report on the contactless cards and payments market, including current and forecast analysis to 2017.

The research, entitled “Innovation in Payment Systems: The Emergence of Contactless Cards and Payments”, provides market analysis, information and insights into contactless card payments including previous and future market growth and an analysis of the industry’s market attractiveness and future growth areas.

Read the full article at ContactlessNews…

New data released by BKM (Interbank Card Center of Turkey) reveals a boom in the amount of contactless cards issued in Turkey, with numbers getting more widespread day by day.

Numbers are exceedingly getting better, reaching 10.3 million in 2012. Contactless card numbers reached 6.3 million in 2011, up from 3.4 million recorded in 2010. The BKM data also notes that of the 2012 numbers 1.4 million were prepaid debit cards, whereas the remaining 8.9 million were credit cards.

Read the full article at ContactlessNews…

Barclaycard reports contactless payments have been used to purchase more than 700,000 London bus users a ticket to ride since the launch last December, and this figure is raising daily.

The latest figures from global payments business show an average of 11,000 contactless bus fares are being made every day, and the volumes are growing exponentially month-on-month. It is expected that up to 25 million contactless bus journeys will be made across the capital by the end of 2013.

Read the full article at ContactlessNews…

Today’s college campuses are the perfect environments for emerging credential technologies. With student populations that tend to be very tech savvy, they are often eager to be first to use the latest and greatest innovations.

College students are also essentially attached to their smart phones, relying on them for everything from social interaction to news and entertainment. With the advent of Near Field Communication and the ability to use a mobile phone and digital keys to unlock doors, there is no doubt that college campuses will start migrating their credentials to phone-based technology over the next few years.

However, several important factors will impact this migration.

Read the full article at ContactlessNews…

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 on the CARTES America web site, Smart Insights’ Analyst Thierry Spanjaard discusses the status of pilot programs, the advantages and disadvantages of open-loop systems, and the various smart technologies, such as contactless, magstripe and NFC, being deployed.

Read the full article at ContactlessNews…

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 of its devices for availability this year, although the company didn’t specify which products would get the upgrade.

Read the full article at ContactlessNews…

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 new system that would enable passengers to tap their contactless-enabled credit/debit card or smart phone equipped with NFC technology to pay the fare when using bus or rail transit services.

Currently, Metro riders must convert their dollars into Metro currency before boarding - either by acquiring a SmarTrip card or a paper fare card. The SmarTrip system costs the transit authority millions annually to maintain.

Read the full article at ContactlessNews…

The Heriot-Watt University in Scotland has selected SALTO Systems to install its smart access control systems at the university’s new student residence, which are located in five buildings spread over two campuses that are almost 40 miles apart.

Students’ bedroom doors are secured by XS4 wireless handles set in toggle mode. This enables access via the card, which also puts the lock into an unlocked mode to allow free access to the room. This particular feature was requested by the university to assist them when students locked themselves out of their flats by leaving their access cards in their rooms. The main entrance door is also protected by a XS4 wireless handle and requires an authorized card to enter at all times.

Read the full article at ContactlessNews…

The Vancouver Transit police anticipates that it will see more cases of transit fraud once TransLink, the city’s public transportation system, introduces the Compass smart-card system in the fall, reports the Vancouver Sun.

TransLink believes that fraud with the new smart card system could be higher than the fraud it experiences with reselling fraudulent student passes, which currently costs the system around C$15 million annually.

Read the full article at ContactlessNews…

Walt Disney World is set to roll out the first installments of its enhanced guest experience, issuing RFID passes to park goers participating in the its Annual Pass program.

According to touringplans.com, starting on March 20, guests who purchase or renew their park Annual Passes will be issued one with RFID technology embedded, as opposed to the old type. These passes can be used to enter the parks through the Next-Gen Touch Point entrances.

Utilizing RFID technology, the new Annual Pass is designed to speed up ticketing lines at some Disney’s most popular rides and theme park attractions.

Read the full article at ContactlessNews…

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 the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), adding that here are 400,000 contactless cards in the Middle East.

Read the full article at ContactlessNews…

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 rating of the leading transportation and ticketing card IC and smart card vendors. A total of 13 companies were evaluated against seven different criteria all under the categories of Implementation and Innovation.

Read the full article at ContactlessNews…