China UnionPay (CUP), the country’s official card payments network, has issued notifications to its member banks to tell them “to avoid working with third-party payment services like Alipay”, Want China Times reports... More
- Eventbrite brings tap to pay to the events industry
- Biometric card pioneer backs away from payments citing lower-than-expected market uptake
- EU calls for feedback on proposed settlement with Apple over NFC chip access
- Google signs deal to take UPI beyond India
- NFC Forum spells out DPP ambitions in ebook
Apple Pay retailers release stats
Apple Pay accounts for 50% of tap-and-pay transactions at McDonald’s, which accepts “all payment products that leverage standard NFC”, according to a New York Times report... More
Keyssa unveils high speed short range ‘kiss’ connectivity technology
Keyssa, a US startup backed by US$47m in funding from investors that include Intel, Samsung and Dolby Family Ventures and chaired by Nest founder Tony Fadell, has unveiled Kiss Connectivity, a solid-state embedded connector that can be used to transfer data between two devices at up to six gigabits per second. More
Softcard adds United MileagePlus cards
United Airlines and Chase are adding support for United MileagePlus credit cards to the Softcard mobile wallet... More
Survey: Contactless adoption requires security proof
Two out of three Americans would consider making mobile or contactless payments more often if they were proven to be secure, a survey of 1,000 US consumers conducted by Kelton Research for Gemalto has found... More
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Finnish cafes to test face recognition
A number of cafes in Helsinki, Finland, are to begin testing a payments service developed by Uniqul that uses the geometric proportions of a customer’s face to verify their identity, Yle reports... More
Westpac NZ offers NFC stickers
Westpac New Zealand is to offer customers contactless stickers they can attach to the back of their mobile phone to make NFC payments at more than 15,000 contactless POS terminals across the country... More
Melbourne beacon trial disappoints
Arts Centre Melbourne is rethinking its approach to using Bluetooth beacons after a disappointing pilot that used the technology to send out food and beverage offers to visitors during October’s Melbourne Festival... More
Optus launches NFC payments in Australia
Australian carrier Optus has teamed up with Visa and Heritage Bank to launch an NFC mobile payment service that lets customers load up to A$500 into a prepaid account and then make payments at any Visa contactless POS terminal. More
Google exits digital goods payments
Google is to “retire” its Google Wallet for digital goods API and has told merchants who currently let customers pay for digital goods via Google Wallet on their websites that they will need to remove API calls to the service by 2 March 2015... More
EcoCash takes mobile money to the point of sale
EcoCash, Africa’s second largest mobile money provider with 3.7m users, is to offer customers in Zimbawe a MasterCard debit card linked to their EcoCash wallet. This will enable them to use the funds in their mobile money account to make payments at merchant POS terminals and withdraw cash from ATMs. More
Softcard picks Muppet mascot for online advertising campaign
US carrier mobile payments venture Softcard has unveiled Tappy, a mascot designed by the company behind The Muppets that will be used initially in an online advertising blitz reported to be valued at US$1.5m. More
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Visa CEO: We may not charge a fee for tokenization
Visa will not charge a fee to card issuers making use of its tokenization service until at least the end of 2015 and may or may not charge a separate fee for the service in the future, CEO Charles Scharf has revealed at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2014 Banking & Financial Services Conference. More
Brooklyn Nets launch mobile wallet
American Express has partnered with New York basketball team Brooklyn Nets to pilot Brooklyn eWallet, a digital payment solution integrated into the team’s mobile app that lets fans buy food and drink with their mobile phone at any event held at the Barclays Center arena... More
Paris restaurant equips waiters with wearables that alert them when orders are ready
Waiters in a Paris restaurant have been equipped with mobile phones that let them take orders on the go — and smartwatches that let bartenders and kitchen staff alert them when an order is ready to be served, avoiding delays and improving service times. More
Korean banks partner with messaging giant for mobile banking service
Korean internet and messaging giant Daum Kakao has launched BankWalletKakao, a mobile wallet service provided in partnership with 16 Korean banks and Korea Financial Telecommunications and Clearing Institute (KFTC). The service leverages instant messaging technology to let users make online payments, transfer funds to friends and make ATM withdrawals with their mobile phone. More
Samsung launches Proximity mobile marketing platform
Samsung has unveiled Proximity, a location-based marketing platform that uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons and works in a similar way to Apple’s iBeacon system — but without the need for consumers to be persuaded to download a marketer’s own app to access the service. More
MasterCard and Visa to create new security standard to replace passwords for online payments
MasterCard is working with Visa to create a new authentication standard for online payments that will gradually replace the 3D Secure protocol with “invisible authentication”, far fewer prompts for passwords and support for a range of biometric technologies. More
McDonald’s on mobile payments: We prefer to let our customers choose how they pay
McDonald’s sees accepting NFC mobile payments as part of its on-going customer service improvement remit, the fast food giant’s Anja Carroll has told NFC World+. “We can accept all payment products that leverage standard NFC and we prefer to allow our customers to choose how they prefer to pay,” she explained. More
Kili acquires NFC microSD pioneer DeviceFidelity
NFC-on-microSD pioneer DeviceFidelity has been acquired by Kili Technology, a payments processing solution provider which launched an mPOS “solution-on-a-chip” range last month. More