The Ventra mobile ticketing app introduced by Chicago’s Metra commuter rail service in November 2015 has been used by passengers on more than one million journeys in its first two months... More
Archive: News in brief
Apple Pay adds 51 US banks
Apple has added another 51 banks and credit unions to its list of Apple Pay supporting financial institutions in the US... More
A third of US consumers now use mobile wallets
Nearly a third of US consumers (32%) are currently using a mobile wallet such as Apple Pay or Android Pay, research from Vibes reveals... More
Swiss banks add support for Paymit mobile payments
Paymit, the P2P transfer service set up by Switzerland’s SIX, UBS and Zürcher Kantonalbank, has added support from three more banks ahead of its launch as an in-store mobile payment solution in February 2016... More
Otto Group to offer PowaTag mobile payments
German retail giant Otto Group has partnered with Powa Technologies to offer its customers mobile payments through PowaTag, a service that lets consumers make purchases by capturing ‘PowaTags’ using their mobile device... More
Alipay reports 65% share of China’s online payments market
Nearly two thirds (65%) of online payments in China were made through Alipay last year, findings published by the mobile payments provider and reported by ECNS reveal... More
Swatch and Visa to take Bellamy smartwatch to Rio Olympics
Visitors to this summer’s Rio 2016 Olympics will be able to use luxury watchmaker Swatch’s Bellamy NFC smartwatch to pay for event passes, according to the Financial Times... More
Starbucks sees rise in US mobile transactions
Some 22% of all US transactions in Starbucks during December were made using mobile apps, up from 21% in November 2015, the company’s Kevin Johnson reported during the coffee chain’s first quarter earnings call. “Over one million customers in the US used Mobile Order & Pay capability in the month of December and those customers averaged approximately five mobile orders in the month,” Johnson added... More
Apple Pay leads US mobile payments market
Apple Pay is “overwhelmingly the share leader” in point-of-sale mobile payments across the US despite uptake remaining relatively low, the latest statistics from Piper Jaffray’s Apple Pay adoption tracker show... More
Samsung Pay to let South Koreans pay in China and US
Samsung Pay users in South Korea will soon be able to make payments in China and the US using cards issued by South Korean card companies... More
UK contactless payments hit £1bn record in November 2015
Contactless payments in the UK hit a record £1.02bn (US$1.45bn) in a single month for the first time in November 2015, increasing from £287m in January that year, The UK Cards Association reveals. The number of contactless purchases in November totalled 128m while the average transaction value increased to £8.03, up from £7.72 in October... More
ZTE won’t launch its own mobile payment service
Handset maker ZTE has revealed that it will not be launching its own mobile payment service... More
Jetco to launch P2P payments with 12 Hong Kong banks
Hong Kong ATM network Jetco has partnered with 12 banks to offer Jetco Pay P2P, a service that will let customers transfer funds using the recipient’s mobile number... More
One in six Koreans use mobile to pay in-store and online
One in six South Korean consumers (15.8%) have used a mobile to pay for in-store or online purchases, research by The Bank of Korea shows... More
Rite Aid deploys 4,500 Bluetooth beacons
US pharmacy chain Rite Aid has deployed more than 4,500 Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons across its US stores to send personalised messages to its customers... More
KPN and Rabobank to launch SIM-based NFC payments
Dutch mobile network operator KPN and Rabobank have unveiled a SIM-based NFC mobile payment solution that will launch this spring... More
Radius Bank launches P2P transfer service
Customers of the USA’s Radius Bank can now make peer-to-peer money transfers using the recipient’s email address or mobile number... More
Estimote raises US$10.7m
Beacon manufacturer Estimote has raised US$10.7m in a Series A investment round led by Javelin Venture Partners... More
Paytm trials sound-based payments
Indian mobile payment platform Paytm is trialling a Sound Pay feature that will enable users of its mobile app to make in-store payments via ultrasonic sound waves which transmit data — including payment amount and customer credentials — to the point of sale... More
CaixaBank launches mobile-only bank
Spain’s CaixaBank has launched a mobile-only bank to provide banking services through mobile apps and social networks... More