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NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – It was the fall of 2015, and interest in the Pays wallets was burgeoning. Google and Samsung had each launched their respective payments services in September of 2015 in the U.S., following introduction of Apple Pay a year earlier.

NFC TIMES Exclusive – The 76th Annual Golden Globes held Sunday featured the usual share of Hollywood celebrities preening for the cameras, showing off their new designer gowns and latest nips and tucks, while holding their trophies high if they won.

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – While such smartwatches as the Apple Watch are routinely provisioned with payments cards after they are in the hands of consumers, that hasn’t been the case for low-tech analog watches. Swatch Pay could change that.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Chip maker STMicroelectronics has been gearing up to make a play for the payments wearables market, an initiative punctuated by its announcement last week that it is working with Germany-based Giesecke & Devrient and payments wearables technology start-up FitPay to streamline provisioning of card credentials on its embedded chips.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Germany-based Giesecke & Devrient turned around its financial results in 2015, including its money-losing banking and SIM card unit, thanks mainly to restructuring and higher shipments of EMV bank cards to China and the U.S., the privately held company disclosed Tuesday. 

NFC Times Excusive – When Taiwan’s No. 3 credit card issuer, E.Sun Commercial Bank, held a press conference with Visa Dec. 28 to announce it was the first bank on the island nation to launch HCE-based mobile payments commercially, it also presented Hewlett Packard Enterprise as its technology supplier for the project.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – As payments companies pin their hopes on wearables becoming the next wave of portable payments devices, not surprisingly there is more hype than substance when it comes to commercial launches.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – TAIPEI, Taiwan: Taiwan’s third largest credit card issuer, E.Sun Commercial Bank, today announced the launch of mobile payments with host card emulation, the first bank on the island nation to launch HCE commercially. NFC Times had reported the planned launch Dec. 3.

NFC Times Exclusive – Oberthur Technologies, the No. 2 smart card vendor globally and a major bank card and SIM supplier, had flat sales in 2014, blamed mainly on lower revenue in its telecom business unit from falling prices for lower-end SIM cards, slow sales of NFC SIMs and a hiatus in its contract to supply embedded chips to Samsung.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Gemalto CEO Olivier Piou said revenue from the vendor’s trusted service management business fell in the first quarter and would stay down for the rest of the year, while indicating Gemalto is no longer seeing many TSM tenders from telcos.