Shoppers at Adobe’s prototype “store of the future” in Las Vegas are being given RFID chip-enabled shopping bags that allow them to purchase items simply by putting the bags on a checkout counter... More
USA
Amazon expands its payments business
Amazon has launched the Amazon Payments Partner Program, a new service designed to enable ecommerce platform providers and developers to offer merchants Amazon Payments, which allows customers to log in and pay using their account with the online retail giant... More
MasterCard reports on ‘selfie pay’ popularity
MasterCard’s Identity Check service, which lets consumers authenticate payments by taking a picture of themselves using their smartphone, has “gone like wildfire in the trials that we’ve done in the Netherlands and the US”, Ann Cairns, the payments network’s president for international markets, has revealed during a keynote at Money20/20 Europe in Copenhagen... More
Federal Reserve reports on US mobile payment adoption
Nearly a quarter of US adults with a mobile phone (24%) and 28% of those with a smartphone made a mobile payment in the 12 months prior to November 2015, a survey by the Federal Reserve reveals... More
A third of Americans unconvinced about mobile payment apps
More than one third of Americans (36%) don’t feel a need for mobile payment apps, compared to 12% of Mexicans and 13% of Chileans, according to mobile banking service Fintonic... More
Samsung Pay launches in China
Samsung Pay has begun rolling out across China, letting consumers make mobile payments with a compatible device “virtually anywhere you can swipe or tap your card” using their China UnionPay debit and credit cards. More
US students get mobile order and pay
Students at Missouri Valley College and Hannibal-LaGrange University can now order and pay for food and drink using their mobile devices... More
BMO to offer ‘selfie pay’ biometric verification technology to customers
Canadian financial services provider BMO Financial Group is to enable its customers to use MasterCard’s Identity Check mobile app to verify their online transactions via face recognition and fingerprint biometrics... More
Apple Pay adds US and Chinese banks
Apple has added another 48 banks and credit unions to its list of Apple Pay supporting financial institutions in the US and a further three banks in China, “notably including Ally Bank, one of the last major national US banks that had not supported the mobile wallet technology,” Macnn reports... More
Central bank calls for access to cash to be a legal right in Sweden
Access to cash should become a legal right for Swedish consumers and banks should have a duty placed on them to provide cash services as a basic feature of payment accounts, Sweden’s central bank has said... More
American Bankers Association calls for tokenization and biometrics
The American Bankers Association’s Card Policy Council is calling for all consumer-facing industries to implement the latest payment protection technologies, including EMV chip cards, tokenization and biometrics... More
Nearly half of top marketers plan to invest in NFC in 2016
Close to half (46%) of the top marketers surveyed for a new location-based marketing report say they plan to invest in NFC this year. 41% plan to invest in Bluetooth beacons, 63% in WiFi and 57% in GPS. More
Samsung Pay hands out US$30 gift cards to S7 users
US consumers who make their first purchase using Samsung Pay on a Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge device this month are being offered a gift card worth US$30 from one of five selected Samsung Pay merchants — Best Buy, eBay, Whole Foods, Nike or Regal Cinema. More
People’s United Bank adds Samsung Pay
Customers of People’s United Bank in the US can now add their debit cards to Samsung Pay... More
Verizon removes Samsung Pay from Galaxy handsets?
US mobile network operator Verizon is shipping the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge without support for Samsung Pay, according to an Android Police report... More
ExxonMobil rolls out Apple Pay at the pump
Motorists across the US can now pay for their fuel at the pump at more than 6,000 ExxonMobil gas stations using Apple Pay and the fuel retailer’s Speedpass+ mobile payment app. The oil and gas company plans to expand the app’s availability to more than 8,000 locations by mid-year. More
Square drops contactless for Australia launch
Mobile POS provider Square has launched in Australia, enabling retailers across the country to accept credit and debit card payments using their mobile phones... More
Samsung Pay records net loss of US$16.8m in 2015
Samsung Pay has recorded a net loss of US$16.8m since the mobile payment service was unveiled in March 2015, despite attracting approximately five million users in South Korea and the US in its first six months... More
Apple Pay adds 27 US banks
Apple has added a further 27 banks and credit unions to its list of Apple Pay supporting financial institutions in the US... More
MasterCard to include Daon technology in selfie pay service
MasterCard is to make use of mobile biometric technology provider Daon’s IdentityX Platform as one of the authentication technologies for MasterCard Identity Check, the ‘selfie pay’ service it is rolling out to the US, Canada and parts of Europe this year... More