PARTNER NEWS: Mastercard has announced a strategic partnership with Tappy Technologies that will see the two companies working together to let fashion brands easily add contactless payments to watches, jewellery and other accessories. 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
CaixaBank uses NFC to let customers check in to flagship bank branch of the future
Spain’s CaixaBank has unveiled ‘all in one’, a 3,000sqm bank branch in Barcelona that showcases the latest financial technology experiences — including NFC check-ins and facial recognition ATMs... More
PayPal and Venmo to move into in-store payments ‘next year’
PayPal is to begin a major new push into in-store payments next year, under both the PayPal and Venmo brands and using both NFC and QR codes, CEO Dan Schulman has told Axios. More
Visa invests in US ultrasonic payments startup
Visa has made “a financial injection” in Lisnr, a US startup that is using ultrasonic data transmission as an alternative to NFC and QR codes for mobile payments... More
Tencent to let visitors to China add their payment cards to WeChat Pay
Tencent, the owner of Chinese mobile payments provider WeChat Pay, has announced that it is working with Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover and JCB to enable cardholders to connect their payment cards to WeChat Pay and then use the platform to make mobile payments when visiting China... More
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Salvation Army adds NFC chips to Red Kettles
The Salvation Army is adding NFC chips to all 25,000 of its iconic Red Kettles for its Christmas 2019 fundraising campaign, enabling shoppers to simply tap their Apple or Android NFC phone to make a donation to the charity... More
Toronto to pilot bank card payments on public transport network
Greater Toronto area public transportation agency Metrolinx “is to start testing an open payment function on its Presto fare-card system as early as next year,” the Toronto Star reports... More
Discover begins US contactless card rollout
Discover is to begin issuing contactless payment cards “for most” of its Discover It and Discover More cardmembers “who need cards reissued or replaced” this month and, from December, will start issuing contactless cards to new Discover cardholders... More
Alipay lets visitors to China use its mobile payments platform
Tourists visiting China can now use a version of Alipay designed specifically for international travellers to make mobile payments during their trip, Alipay has announced... More
NFC Forum appoints Mike McCamon as its new executive director
“My goal is to guide the NFC Forum in a slight pivot to increase focus on doing whatever is necessary to enable NFC technology to deliver a consistently positive user experience, however it is used,” Mike McCamon, the new executive director of the NFC Forum, has told NFC World. More
Open banking pilot goes live in Korea
A new open banking system which is set to cut transaction fees by 90% has now entered pilot testing, Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) has announced. More
India’s bank-led UPI instant payments platform reports 1bn mobile transactions
“UPI has had the fastest acceptance rate not just among payment platforms but digital platforms of any kind,” Dilip Asbe, chief executive officer of the National Payments Corporation of India, has told Bloomberg... More
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RBR reports 10% growth in global payment card market
Continued growth in China cements UnionPay as the world’s largest card scheme — RBR — “There were 16bn payment cards in circulation at the end of 2018, up by 10% since a year earlier… The largest scheme worldwide is UnionPay, which accounted for 45% of cards in circulation at the end of 2018… Visa (including Visa, Visa Electron, V Pay and Interlink) made up 20% of the world’s cards… Mastercard (Mastercard, Maestro and Mastercard Electronic) accounts for 16% of all cards.”
Starling Bank lets customers use a single debit card to pay in multiple currencies
Starling Bank launches euro debit card so business and personal customers can spend in two currencies with one card — Starling Bank — “To start using the new Euro Card feature, Starling account holders, both business and personal, must open a euro account… Once it’s open, they can transfer money from their business account to their euro account with a single tap in the app… Their existing debit card can [then] be switched on (in-app) to operate in either pounds or euros, depending on the currency of the transaction.”
Delhi Metro explores biometric transit cards for concessionary fares
Delhi Metro to introduce biometric-based ticketing to offer concessions to students and senior citizens — Techradar — “Delhi Metro is looking to be the first metro line in India to link biometrics to smart cards, in a bid to offer concessions to riders… Once the new biometric-based ticketing system is installed, the smart card will be linked to an individual users’ credentials, and the card will no longer be transferable.”
Google explains the benefits of its Biometric API
One Biometric API over all Android — Google — “In addition to supporting multiple biometric authentication form factors, the API has made it much easier for developers to check whether a given device has biometric sensors… In addition, the framework has built-in support for facial authentication in Android 10 so that vendors don’t need to create a custom implementation.”
STIB tests contactless bank cards on Brussels Metro
STIB testing use of bank card as metro ticket at entrance gates — The Brussels Times — “STIB is testing a new system of contactless payment at metro station Parc/Park to allow travellers to directly scan their bank card, instead of a ticket, at the gates. If everything goes well, all other metro stops, as well as the electric buses on bus line 33, will be fitted out with the contactless system over the next few months.”
Apple CEO: Apple Pay transaction volumes have now overtaken PayPal
Apple Pay revenue and transactions have “more than doubled year-over-year with over 3bn transactions in the September quarter, exceeding PayPal’s number of transactions and growing four times as fast,” Apple CEO Tim Cook has revealed. More
First Group adds NFC bus tickets to Google Pay
Public transportation operator First Group has begun a pilot of a new mobile ticketing service that uses host card emulation (HCE) to let customers with an Android NFC phone purchase a bus ticket, provision it to Google Pay and then use their smartphone to tap an on-board contactless reader when they board a bus... More
Chinese supermarket to launch face recognition payments in Canada
Pay with your face system coming to Canada, but not everyone is on board — Yahoo Finance — “Ryan Li, Foodymart’s executive manager, sees the technology as an opportunity to grow his company’s business by attracting new customers, as well as cutting down on checkout times. Li also said between 50% and 60% of Foodymart customers have lived in China, and he expects most of them have previously interacted with a facial recognition payment system.”