Almost one in six US consumers (15%) have used a mobile wallet in the past six months, up from 9% in the same period in 2013, and an additional 22% are likely to adopt mobile wallet functionality in the coming six months, a study released by market research and consulting firm Chadwick Martin Bailey has found... More
Mastercard
MasterCard extends tokenization platform
MasterCard is to extend its tokenization services to merchants with in-app, ecommerce and recurring billing card-on-file programs as well as to private label credit cards... More
The Bancorp to offer HCE prepaid cards to European issuers
Financial products and services provider The Bancorp will offer open loop mobile prepaid cards that make use of host card emulation (HCE) to its European issuers in the fourth quarter of this year, through a partnership with mobile payment provider MeaWallet... More
Apple Pay users in UK will be able to make payments above contactless card limit
Customers who choose to use Apple Pay when the service launches in the UK will be able to use the mobile payments service to make transactions over the current contactless limit of £20 (US$30) at select retail locations, according to Visa Europe’s executive director of mobile... More
MasterCard confirms UK Apple Pay support
MasterCard has confirmed its role in the UK launch of Apple Pay later this year following comments it made last week that it was ready to switch on the mobile payments service in Europe... More
NBO first to pilot contactless in Oman
National Bank of Oman (NBO) has become the first in the country to launch a contactless card pilot, in partnership with MasterCard... More
Visa Europe to participate in Apple Pay UK launch
Visa Europe has confirmed that it will play a part in the the UK launch of Apple Pay and will give debit, credit and reloadable prepaid cardholders access to the payment system... More
Google misses out on transaction fee revenues
Google won’t earn any transaction fees from credit card issuers for Android Pay, unlike Apple which receives 0.15% of the value of each credit card transaction made with Apple Pay, sources have told The Wall Street Journal.“That is because Visa and MasterCard recently standardised their tokenization card-security service and made it free, preventing payments services from charging fees to issuers,” the newspaper reports... More
UK retailers to go 100% contactless by 2020
“From the beginning of next year, any new payment terminal that gets deployed has to accept contactless,” MasterCard’s head of emerging payments products Mike Cowan told attendees at the company’s Future of Payments event in London this week, TechWeek Europe reports... More
MasterCard ready to “switch on” Apple Pay in Europe
MasterCard is “absolutely ready” to switch on Apple Pay in the UK and Europe and is just waiting for the iPhone maker’s green light... More
Gazprombank pilots NFC tickets
Russia’s Gazprombank and MasterCard are piloting NFC mobile and contactless card payments for transit fares using PayPass terminals across the K-39 bus route in St Petersburg... More
Google demonstrates how Android Pay will work
Google has demonstrated how its Android Pay mobile payments service will work for making in-store and in-app purchases, for payments made through a banking partner mobile app, and how users will be able to pay for items such as a Coca-Cola from a vending machine using just the points stored in a customer loyalty account. More
Google unveils Android Pay
Google is to introduce a new NFC mobile payments platform called Android Pay with the release of Android M later this year, vice president of engineering Dave Burke has revealed during the Google I/O 2015 keynote. More
Danske Bank pilots Zwipe biometric cards
Denmark’s Danske Bank has become the latest financial institution to pilot a contactless biometric card developed by Norway-based Zwipe that features an integrated fingerprint sensor and has received the backing of MasterCard... More
MasterCard launches P2P payments service
MasterCard has unveiled a P2P payments service that lets consumers send and receive funds “within seconds” from “virtually any” US debit card account... More
Payments veteran Buffy Duke joins Carta
PARTNER NEWS: Transaction technology provider Carta Worldwide has hired Elizabeth “Buffy” Duke as its vice president of business development... More
O2 buys out Weve partners and drops mobile payment plans
O2, one of the three UK mobile network operators that formed the mobile commerce joint venture Weve three years ago, has bought out partners EE and Vodafone to operate the brand as a wholly-owned subsidiary — and has confirmed to NFC World that it has abandoned Weve’s mobile payment ambitions... More
Yandex offers mobile payments at 1,300 Ukraine fuel stations
Ukrainian drivers can now pay for fuel at more than 1,300 outlets across the country using a mobile payment service launched by Russian internet company Yandex, in partnership with PrivatBank and MasterCard... More
Discover to add support for Apple Pay
Apple Pay will be supported by all major US credit card companies “beginning this fall” after Discover announced plans to join Visa, MasterCard and American Express in letting its cardholders add cards and make NFC payments using the mobile payments service... More
Sabadell HCE wallet to go live in July
Spain’s Banco Sabadell is to make its HCE-based mobile payments service, developed in partnership with MasterCard, available to customers in July... More