Samsung Pay is to begin rolling out across Singapore on June 16, making it the first country in Southeast Asia to get the mobile payment service. It will launch with support from American Express, MasterCard and Visa and major banks. More
PARTNER NEWS: Football fans at Euro 2016 will be able to pay for their journeys on the Transpole transport network in the French city of Lille with a tap of their wrist using an NFC transport ticketing wristband being rolled out by digital security giant Gemalto and public transit operator Keolis Lille... More
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) is working to finalise the next Bluetooth release which will add “significantly more capacity” for advertising transmissions, meaning that longer messages can be communicated through Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons, the organisation says... More
US retailer-led consortium MCX is concluding the pilot of its CurrentC mobile wallet at the end of June and will be disabling all user accounts. The company has “not yet determined the future timing of CurrentC”. More
The number of Chinese consumers making in-store mobile payments more than doubled last year and almost half of all smartphone users in the country will be making proximity mobile payments by 2020, according to research released by eMarketer... More
Customers of Erste Bank und Sparkassen in Austria will now be able to make NFC payments using a wristband, sticker or mobile app launched by the bank. All three payment methods are available countrywide and can also be used to make withdrawals at the first NFC-enabled Erste Bank ATM in Vienna. More
Attendees at the Government of Dubai Media Office’s Arab Media Forum charitable event were given NFC wristbands that let them tap on NFC scan stations and donate AED 170 (US$46) towards research into life-threatening illnesses such as cancer, obesity and cardiovascular diseases. More
Owners of Mobvoi’s Ticwatch will soon be able to make NFC payments at contactless terminals across China as the result of a partnership between the smartwatch maker, China UnionPay (CUP) and Oberthur Technologies (OT). More
PARTNER NEWS: Finnish commuters travelling on the Helsinki transport network can now use their mobile phone to pay for public transport beyond the central tram and metro systems and have the cost of the ticket charged to their mobile phone bill... More
Chinese tourists will soon be able to make payments at 210,000 store locations in Germany serviced by payment provider Concardis using Ant Financial’s Alipay mobile payment platform. The move marks the service’s launch into Europe after the company unveiled its expansion plans at Money20/20 Europe in April 2016. More
Athletes at this year’s Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be given an NFC payments ring linked to a Visa account that will let them make purchases by tapping their hand against contactless terminals. More
Samsung Pay has begun rolling out across Spain, making it the first European market where the mobile payment service is available. The service has launched with support from CaixaBank and ImaginBank and will also be available for customers of Abanca and Banco Sabadell “soon”. More
UK consumers can now pay for food and drinks at sports and entertainment venues serviced by IT solutions provider Verteda and charge their purchases to their mobile phone bill. The company has integrated the service into its Qjacker mobile payments app through direct carrier billing provider Boku. More
More than a quarter of US consumers (27%) with an eligible smartphone have used Apple Pay, Android Pay or Samsung Pay, according to research released by Auriemma Consulting Group (ACG)... More
Some 3bn contactless transactions were made across Europe on Visa cards and payment-enabled devices in the year to 30 April 2016, growing from 143m transactions a month in April 2015 to 360m in April 2016... More
One in four British consumers intend to use their mobile phone to make NFC-based mobile payments in the next 12 months, according to research from MasterCard... More
US startup Spendwallet is raising funds on Indiegogo for an electronic wallet device that can store up to 20 magnetic stripe cards and will let the owner make payments at the point of sale using the company’s self-developed Magnetic Flux Emulation (MFE) technology. More
More than half of US and UK consumers (52%) prefer to log in to online accounts using “modern authentication methods”, research from Gigya reveals, including 29% who favour two-factor authentication and 20% who prefer biometric authentication. More
PARTNER NEWS: Customers of Eurobank Poland can now make host card emulation (HCE) based mobile payments as a result of a collaboration between First Data Poland and tokenization and mobile payment specialist Bell ID which offers cloud-based mobile payments as a service to Polish banks... More
Consumers in Singapore can now add their MasterCard and Visa cards to Apple Pay, after the mobile payment service launched there in April 2016 with support from American Express alone... More