JPMorgan Chase to reward mobile-only bank account customers for using key features

JPMorgan Chase takes smartphone account ‘Finn’ nationwide — Reuters — “JPMorgan is offering $100 to people who open accounts and complete 10 transactions of certain types, such as sending money to another person or paying a bill. The incentive is designed to make customers familiar with using the app, said Melissa Feldsher, head of Finn. She believes customers will stick with the accounts after seeing they can automatically make deposits to their savings accounts, such as moving $2 from their checking account every time they spend $5 with the app at a Starbucks coffee shop.”


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PayPal adds support for local payments services

Introducing the new PayPal Checkout, built to drive conversions — PayPal — “Smart Payment Buttons are checkout buttons that dynamically present the most relevant payment methods for each customer in each geography… Over the next few weeks, we will enable iDEAL for customers in the Netherlands, Bancontact for customers in Belgium, MyBank for customers in Italy, Giropay for customers in Germany and EPS for customers in Austria… We expect to roll out many more local payment methods this year.”


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New Bank of England settlement system to support ‘private payment systems’

New economy, new finance, new bank — Bank of England — “The Bank of England is in the midst of an ambitious rebuild of the Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system — the backbone of every payment in the UK… RTGS is being re-built so that new private payment systems, including those using distributed ledger, can simply plug into our system… No longer will access to central bank money be the exclusive preserve of banks.”


NFC World

Scientists combine gas sensors and NFC tags to deliver rotten food warnings to consumers

The ultimate ‘smell test’: Device sends rotten food warning to smartphones — American Chemical Society — “The scientists created a nanostructured, conductive, polymer-based gas sensor that can detect substances called biogenic amines (BAs), which give decomposing meat its bad odor. They embedded these sensors into NFCs placed next to meats. After the meats had been stored for 24 hours at 86 degrees Fahrenheit, the researchers found that the sensors successfully detected significant amounts of BAs. The sensors then switched on the NFCs so they could transmit this information to a nearby smartphone.”


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BIS: Digital currencies don’t yet offer a solution to any specific economic problems

Cryptocurrencies: looking beyond the hype — Bank for International Settlements — “Cryptocurrencies promise to replace trusted institutions with distributed ledger technology. Yet, looking beyond the hype, it is hard to identify a specific economic problem which they currently solve. Transactions are slow and costly, prone to congestion, and cannot scale with demand. The decentralised consensus behind the technology is also fragile and consumes vast amounts of energy. Still, distributed ledger technology could have promise in other applications.”


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Korea’s central bank ‘opposes’ the idea of a digital currency

BOK will not issue digital money — Korea Times — “The Bank of Korea (BOK), the country’s central bank, said Monday it opposes the idea of central bank digital currency (CBDC)… The bank is worrying over concerns that such a sudden launch of the CBDC will cost society a lot and cause a moral hazard. Also, issuing CBDC could destabilize the market order because digital currencies don’t currently constitute money.”


What's New in Payments

Juniper predicts gains in market share for OEM Pays

Apple Pay accounts for 1 in 2 OEM Pay users globally, reaching 200 million by 2020 — Juniper Research — “The global number of mobile contactless users will exceed 760 million by 2020, up from an estimated 440 million in 2018… The combined market share of Apple, Samsung and Google will reach 60% of global mobile contactless users by 2023, up from an estimated 50% in 2018. Other OEM Pay users, including the likes of Huawei Pay, Xiaomi Pay, Fitbit Pay and Garmin Pay, will exceed 20 million by 2020.”


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Central bank patents point to plans for a hybrid digital currency in China

PBOC filings reveal big picture for planned digital currency — Coindesk — “The ultimate goal, according to PBOC’s patents, is to ‘break the silo between blockchain-based cryptocurrency and the existing monetary system’ so that the digital currency can sport cryptocurrency-like features, while being widely used in the existing financial structure.”


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Central Bank of Bahamas plans digital currency pilot

Bahamas to introduce digital currency — Jamaica Observer — “The production of a modern fully digital payment service is the way forward for this era of governance… A digital Bahamian currency is especially important for the many family islands as they have seen many commercial banks downsize and pull out of their communities, leaving them without banking services.”


What's New in Payments

UnionPay begins mobile payments rollout in North America

UnionPay QR code payment debuts in North America — UnionPay International — “UnionPay International announced today that it has partnered with Bank of China (Canada) in enabling all the stores of Foodymart in Canada to accept UnionPay QR code payment… Some food and beverage merchants in California, the US, have recently started accepting UnionPay QR code payment too… It is expected that the number of merchants accepting UnionPay QR code payment in North America will reach 5,000 within this year.”


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mPOS terminals to account for one in four POS transactions

Mobile point-of-sale devices to account for almost 1 in 4 POS transactions by 2023 — Juniper Research — “The adoption of mPos (mobile point-of-sale) devices connecting wirelessly or via mobile devices, such as those from iZettle and Square, will drive annual mPos transactions to over 87bn by 2023. This will represent a threefold increase over an estimated 28bn transactions in 2018.”


Canadian banks and carriers to roll out digital ID platform

Canadian mobile digital identity service to launch this fall — IT World Canada — “A long-awaited Canadian mobile digital identity validation service supported by Canada’s biggest banks and telcos will launch this fall… Called Verified.Me, the service installs an app on a mobile device that confirms a user’s identity, allowing businesses and governments to immediately do transactions without demanding proof of identity.”



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Survey finds British shoppers are ready to take advantage of voice commerce

Shoppers willing to spend £200 using voice commerce, study says — Internet Retailing — “A survey of more than 500 consumers across the UK reveals the average UK consumer is happy to spend in excess of £195 (US$258) in an order through voice technology, rising to £232 (US$307) in the case of shoppers over the age of 30.”


What's New in Payments

Chinese banks report strong growth in bank card usage

China has over 7bn bank cards — Xinhua — “China had issued 7.03bn bank cards by the end of 2017, meaning each Chinese person has about five cards on average… Last year, the number of transactions via bank cards rose 29.4% to 149bn, with a total of 735 trillion yuan (about US$113tn) swiped from bank cards. Consumption via bank cards accounted for 48.7% in China’s total retail sales of consumer goods.”



What's New in Payments

Eight in ten merchants expect real-time payments to replace debit and credit cards in Europe

One in four European merchants has experienced data theft — ACI Worldwide — “80% of European merchants believe that real-time payments will replace the use of debit or credit cards over time (in the Netherlands, 100% of merchants hold this view; in Belgium 87% and Germany 84%), 76% of merchants believe that real-time payments will help to save their business money, 63% believe real-time payments will reduce their payments acceptance costs. Half of all European merchants (48%) plan to increase their investment in payments technology in 2018.”


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PayPal takes its Venmo P2P service in-store with new debit card

Take your balance shopping with Venmo card — Venmo — “With the Venmo card, you can use your Venmo balance in more places… Low Venmo balance? We’ll use your linked funding source to reload your Venmo balance so you can make that card purchase… For those with Venmo notifications enabled, you’ll be notified on your phone with each swipe. And, we aim to alleviate the panic that comes with losing a card: just a few taps in the app, and boom — your card is disabled.”


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Fossil to add NFC payments to multiple smartwatch brands?

FCC reveals seven new Wear OS watches with NFC from Fossil Group [U: Two more models] — 9to5Google — “The Fossil Group is comprised of several fashion brands, with Fossil, Skagen, Misfit, Michael Kors, and others all making Wear OS devices. In general, they share the underlying technology, but different casing, styles, and sometimes features.”


What's New in Payments

SPA white paper examines the potential of bank cards with built-in biometric sensors

Cover shot: 'Biometrics in payment: Breaking down barriers with high value payments'

KNOWLEDGE CENTRE: Biometric sensor-on-card solutions, where a fingerprint sensor is built into a standard EMV card, “represent an important step forward for the finance industry, opening the way to eliminating fraud for issuers and cardholders, reducing costs and providing the additional security and identity verification required to support remote or cross-border transactions,” the authors of a new white paper conclude... More