Contactless Intelligence Announces Winners of 2014 Contactless & Mobile Awards
Berlin, Germany and London, UK (PRWEB UK) 30 April 2014 -- Now in its seventh year, the Contactless & Mobile Awards (sponsored by Visa Europe) have yet again attracted a record turnout, making it an important fixture in the Contactless calendar and recognizing the global acceptance for Contactless and NFC technology.
The 2014 Contactless Intelligence Contactless & Mobile Awards honor achievements across a wide range of sectors and countries throughout Europe and further afield. “We’ve seen entry numbers grow year-on-year, highlighting the dynamism of this burgeoning industry,” said Steve Atkins, Editor-in-Chief of Contactless Intelligence and CEO of Krowne Communications, the company behind Contactless Intelligence. “Whereas other award ceremonies focus on behind-the-scenes technological innovations, we honor those firms that are really making a difference in getting contactless devices into the hands of users and encouraging consumers to use them at both major international and small retailers throughout the world.”
New for 2014 are two categories; ‘Contactless Payment Collaboration’ and ‘Retail’. “Contactless Intelligence was keen to create these two new categories because we felt that these are two intrinsic areas that showcase what it takes to bring Contactless and NFC technology to the general public. Both categories represent areas that are vital to the mainstream adoption of Contactless technology,” added Atkins.
This year’s CMA champions accepted their trophies at a gala dinner at Tower Bridge Hilton, London, on April 29, 2014. The winners are:
- Contactless Payment Collaboration – Bank Polski (Poland)
- Retail – Heidi.com (Switzerland)
- Transportation and Ticketing – Transport for London (United Kingdom)
- Mobile Payment – BBVA (Spain)
- Innovation – Selinko (Belgium)
- Customer Experience – UBS Switzerland (Switzerland)
- Loyalty – Escher Interactive (Ireland)
- Public Domain – Vix Technology (Australia)
- Marketing Campaign – Thinaire (USA)
- Infrastructure – ATM / Smarting (Spain)
- Eco-System (sponsored by Samsung Semiconductor Europe) – Bell ID (Netherlands)
In addition, Visa Europe presented its Visa payWave award for Best Contactless Awareness and Education Campaign to Transport for London (UK), while Mark Ritzmann & Christian Wirtz from Vodafone took joint ownership of the Visa payWave Business Leader of the Year prize.
“Visa is delighted to be sponsoring the Contactless and Mobile Awards again in 2014 and we are excited by the increase in the quantity and variety of nominations this year and in the level of innovation in mobile payments. During the past year, we have witnessed a major transformation in the world of payments. Visa contactless payments are now available in twice as many European countries as this time last year and consumers have become increasingly comfortable using the technology, making over 340 million transactions in the past 12 months. We should not think the work is finished though, and the next two to three years will be critical to the success of both Contactless and mobile Contactless. We all need to continue enhancing consumer awareness and extending availability to achieve the vision of a ubiquitous Contactless solution,” said Mark Austin, Director of Contactless at Visa Europe (Platinum Sponsors of the CMAs).
For the second time, there was an award open to all finalists – the Industry Choice Award. Voting was open to anyone in the industry who was willing to cast a vote. After a frenetic ten-day voting, the surprising winner with the most votes was the competition's first individual entry, Ibrahim Serhat BULUT (Turkey).
Atkins said: “The quality of award entries continues to improve each year, demonstrating that Contactless is fast becoming a technology that brings advantages to citizens and businesses alike. Whether it’s to increase throughput, to reduce the amount of cash used by a firm, or to encourage spending, more merchants are choosing to give contactless a go. And they are being encouraged to do so by consumers who are rapidly recognizing the benefits of the technology in terms of convenience and time saving.”
This year’s judges included Wendy Atkins – Contactless Intelligence Editor [Head Judge], Thomas Arenz – Samsung Semiconductor Europe, Mark Austin -Visa Europe, Michel Barjansky – ex RATP, John Berry – European Commission (Research & Innovative Transport Systems), Paul Chamberlain - Association of Convenience Stores, Paul Crutchley – GSMA, John Devlin – ABI Research, Kevin Farquharson – Smart Card Networking Forum, Kristian T. Sørensen - Mobey Forum, Frédéric Vasnier – SIMalliance, Samee Zafar – Edgar Dunn.
“The number of firms that now want to talk about what they are doing with Contactless globally is encouraging for the industry, but it makes the judges’ job tougher every year,” concluded Atkins. “We’re grateful for the time everyone spent analyzing the input in some very tough categories. There were some particularly strong entries in certain categories, such as Retail and Marketing Campaign which meant some of the results were incredibly close.”
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Notes to editors:
About Krowne Communications
Krowne Communications is a specialized B2B media relations agency, well established in the high-tech industry. It was founded in Munich, Germany, in 2000, and is now headquartered in Berlin, Germany. Along with its UK-based company, Krowne Communications (UK) Ltd, it offers services developed specifically to fit the media relations requirements of organizations worldwide, operating in the world of technology. They help clients to reach their goals by offering innovative, creative, and cost-effective communication and media relation solutions (including custom media platforms).
By combining its expertise and background in media communications with first-hand journalistic experience through such on-line media platforms as their own Contactless Intelligence, Krowne fuses both Press and PR elements together effectively, and so offer its clients a unique approach to 21st century media relations and content marketing. Contactless Intelligence and the Contactless & Mobile Awards (formerly known as 'The Monkey Awards') have been in operation since 2007.
For more information, visit http://www.krowne.tv.
About Visa Europe
Visa Europe is a payments technology business owned and operated by member banks and other payment service providers from 37 countries across Europe.
Visa Europe works at the forefront of technology to create the services and infrastructure, which enable millions of European consumers, businesses, and governments to make electronic payments. Its members are responsible for issuing cards, signing up retailers, and deciding cardholder and retailer fees.
Visa Europe operates a high volume, low cost business model that provides services to its members. Its surplus is reinvested into the business and used to improve capital and reserves.
There are 500m Visa cards in Europe, while €1 in every €6.50 spent in Europe is on a Visa card. In the year to September 2013*, total expenditure on Visa cards reached €2 trillion, while point-of-sale spend increased by 8.5% to €1.4 trillion. Annual online spending on Visa cards continues to grow (20% year-on-year) and now stands at €240bn.
Since 2004, Visa Europe has been independent of Visa Inc. and incorporated in the UK, with an exclusive, irrevocable and perpetual licence in Europe. Both companies work in partnership to enable global Visa payments. As a dedicated European payment system, Visa Europe is able to respond quickly to the specific market needs of European banks and their customers - cardholders and retailers - and to meet the European Commission’s objective to create a true internal market for payments.
For more information, visit http://www.visaeurope.com/.
Steve Atkins, Krowne Communications, http://www.contactlessintelligence.com, +49 1709109044, [email protected]
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