Researchers at Imperial College London have developed low-cost NFC-based spoilage sensors for meat and fish packaging that could be in supermarkets within three years and help to reduce the amount of still safe to eat food that UK consumers throw away each year because it has reached its sell-by date... More
Drinks brand Malibu is launching an NFC-based promotion in the US states of Ohio and Texas that enables customers to use NFC tags attached to 300,000 ‘connected bottles’ to win branded goods and access cocktail recipes and other content... More
UK frozen food specialist Iceland has become the first national retailer to trial mobile wallet technology with in-store redeemable mobile discount vouchers installed on more than 20,000 devices... More
Uber has launched a trial of its pedal-assisted electric bikes in London as part of its strategy to become an all-round transport app... More
Coffee giant Starbucks has begun rolling out its Starbucks Now mobile-based, pre-order and pay service to 300 stores in Beijing and Shanghai... More
UK bank NatWest is introducing a debit card design for all its customers that is easier for cardholders with conditions such as visual impairment and dementia to recognise and use... More
Scam victims to be refunded by banks — BBC — “Previously, banks only tended to reimburse people if there was an obvious fault in the way the payment was handled by the bank. Some £354m (US$446m) was lost in this fraud to individuals and businesses last year, but only £83m (US$105m) was refunded… Now anyone who has taken reasonable care, or has any element of vulnerability, is much more likely to receive a refund of the lost money.”
The UK’s NatWest bank has launched a new service that will let consumers pay online merchants directly from their bank accounts, “saving merchants at least 25% of card processing costs”... More
Despite greater than ever use of smart devices for banking and payments and a desire for the latest technologies, Europeans are some of the most cautious adopters, according to a survey of 15,000 consumers in Europe, America and Australia... More
Facebook’s decision to discontinue its peer-to-peer (P2P) Messenger payments option in the UK and France next month is due to poor adoption of the service by consumers, according to new figures from data analytics company GlobalData... More
Belfast City Council has partnered with Israel-based Colu for the launch of Belfast Coin, a city-wide rewards and payment platform that enables participants to earn rewards for taking part in ‘good citizen’ activities such as shopping at local businesses, volunteering and recycling... More
Denver in the US has become the first city in the world where travellers can use the Uber mobile app to buy transit tickets and then use their phone to ride rail and bus services... More
Uber users can now view real-time public transport information from Transport for London (TfL) — such as pricing, schedules and directions — in the Uber app across services including London Underground, buses and rail... More
Supermarket chain Sainsbury’s has launched the UK’s first till-free grocery store, with the pilot being used to help develop the company’s SmartShop Scan, Pay & Go technology which allows shoppers to pay via their smartphone... More
Smart ticketing has been introduced for passengers using major railway stations in the UK. The move sees travellers at all major stations across Britain, including London Waterloo, Brighton, Gatwick Airport, Edinburgh Waverley and Glasgow Central, able to store tickets securely on their mobile phone, on a smart card or in a printable email. More
NatWest Bank has begun a three-month pilot of bank cards incorporating a fingerprint... More
Facebook will scrap Messenger payments in the UK and France — Engadget — “Facebook will discontinue peer-to-peer Messenger payments in France and the UK on 15 June, the company told Engadget. ‘After evaluating how we give people the best experiences in Messenger, we made the decision to focus our efforts on experiences that people find most useful,’ Facebook said.”
Spend your crypto instantly with Coinbase Card — Coinbase — “We’re excited to announce the launch of Coinbase Card, a Visa debit card that lets customers in the UK spend crypto as effortlessly as the money in their bank… Coinbase Card is currently only available in the UK, but we plan to support other European countries in the coming months.”
How the London Underground brings in 53,000 new contactless users a day — PaymentsSource — “More than 21.6m journeys per week are made on London public transit using contactless payments. More than 53,000 new contactless cards or new mobile contactless payments enter the TfL each day, and one in eight contactless journeys come via Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, or other mobile wallet apps.”
A dress shirt which incorporates contactless payment technology in the cuff is set to go on sale this summer... More