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The total value of the global plastic cards market has fallen by US$3bn over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, with the number manufactured worldwide falling by 19.7% from 37.1bn in 2019 to 29.8bn in 2020, according to the International Card Manufacturers Association (ICMA). The ICMA’s 2020 Global Card Market and Personalization and Fulfilment Statistics

Apple is to let Apple Watch users unlock their iPhone using Face ID while they are wearing a mask, without having to enter an additional passcode. The “unlock with Apple Watch” feature is to be piloted in the beta version of the iOS 14.5 system update and will operate when an iPhone is paired with

High school students at Magdalene Catholic College in Sydney, Australia, are to trial RFID transit ticketing tags that come with an operating distance of up to two metres, enabling an on-board reader to detect students automatically as they walk onto a bus. “The new Opal student bag tags eliminate the need to physically tap on

US supermarket chain Kroger is to pilot its first all self-checkout grocery store in Dallas, Texas, enabling customers to scan and pay for their purchases without needing to go through a cashier-staffed checkout lane. “Signs are up at the store alerting customers to the coming changes and to remind customers they can still scan coupons.

Public transportation users in the US state of Ohio’s Greater Dayton area can now use their mobile phone to make capped contactless fare payments from a stored value account, rather than having to purchase tickets or select a fare in advance. The Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority (GDRTA) has added account-based ticketing to its Tapp

Amazon is enabling customers at three more of its Amazon Go outlets in Seattle, USA, to use a contactless palm scanning device to gain access to the store and pay for their purchases with their palm print. This brings the total number of outlets in Seattle equipped with the Amazon One biometric device to eight,

Android users will be able to read and write NFC tags straight from web apps with the release of Chrome 89, the upcoming version of Google’s web browser, next month. Support for Web NFC, an API that governs the exchange of NFC data exchange format (NDEF) messages between web pages and NFC tags, was built

More than four-fifths of the world’s central banks (86%) are engaged in “some form of work” on a central bank digital currency (CBDC), up from “about one third” in 2019, according to a Bank for International Settlements (BIS) survey. Some 60% are actively conducting experiments or proofs-of-concept and 14% are moving into development and pilot