Google signs deal to take UPI beyond India
Google Pay is to take India’s real-time payments system to other countries after signing a deal with the scheme’s manager. More
Cross border
Singapore pilots next generation QR mobile payments service
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is testing an upgraded version of its SGQR unified QR payment code that will enable merchants to accept QR code payments made using a wider range of local and cross-border payment schemes through a single financial institution rather than having to maintain commercial relationships with individual payment scheme providers... More
Total number of digital ID wallets in use globally to top 1.5bn by 2029
More than 1.5bn digital identity wallets will be in use worldwide by 2029, storing approximately 30% of all digital credentials issued by government and commercial entities, according to a Goode Intelligence forecast... More
Finland tests digital passports for contactless cross-border travel to and from the UK
Citizens of Finland travelling on Finnair flights to and from London, Manchester and Edinburgh in the UK can now verify their identity at border control in Helsinki Airport using a digital passport stored on their Apple or Android smartphone... More
QR code payments to top 90bn in SE Asia by 2028
The total number of QR code payments made in SE Asia will reach 90bn by 2028, up from a total QR code transaction volume in the region of 13bn in 2023, according to a forecast by Juniper Research... More
Digital euro to support both NFC and QR payments in stores
The digital euro should be distributed via apps, digital and physical cards and other form factors that enable consumers to make both NFC and QR code in-store payments with the proposed central bank digital currency (CBDC), according to a European Central Bank (ECB) report... More
India and Nepal to sign cross-border mobile payments agreement
Residents of India will soon be able to make mobile payments for goods and services when visiting Nepal from their smartphone’s digital wallet using an interoperable cross-border payments system to be implemented between the two countries... More
Singapore and Malaysia launch cross-border QR code payments system
Residents of Singapore and Malaysia can now make contactless QR code-based payments for goods and payments in either country using an interoperable cross-border payments system launched by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM)... More
OECD seeks feedback on digital identity recommendations
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has published a draft recommendation for the implementation and governance of national and cross-border digital identity systems and is inviting comment on the document from government officials, civil society organisations, international bodies and interested citizens and stakeholders... More
CBDC transactions to top US$213bn worldwide by 2030
The total annual value of transactions made using central bank digital currencies (CBDC) will exceed US$213bn by 2030, up from US$100m in 2023, according to a Juniper Research forecast... More
Laos central bank launches CBDC pilot
The central bank of Laos has begun testing a proof of concept central bank digital currency (CBDC) known as the DLak or digital Lao kip as part of its research into the potential issuance of a CBDC in the country... More
EU to begin large-scale European Digital Identity Wallet pilots for multiple use cases
The European Commission has selected four proposals for large-scale pilot programmes to test the European Digital Identity Wallet across multiple use cases, including in-store, online and cross-border payments, travel, ecommerce, access to services and credential verification... More
Bank of Korea reports slow transaction processing times in DLT digital currency pilot
The Bank of Korea (BOK) is to review additional central bank digital currency (CBDC) design options after its 10-month experiment to test a retail CBDC based on distributed ledger technology (DLT) revealed “limitations of scalability” such as slow processing times during periods of high transaction volume when compared with a more conventional centralised ledger database, the bank says... More
Brazil begins rollout of contactless mobile identity cards
Residents of six Brazilian states and the country’s Federal District can now generate a digital national identity card that they can store on their Apple or Android smartphone and use to verify their ID for multiple uses including accessing public services and contactless cross-border travel to other South American countries within the Mercosur region... More
India to begin digital rupee payments pilot ‘within a month’
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has begun testing a prototype wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) and will launch a pilot programme for a retail digital rupee with merchants and consumers in select locations “within a month”, the central bank says... More
People’s Bank of China reports on digital yuan uptake
The digital yuan has been used to make 360m transactions worth a total of more than 100bn yuan (US$14bn) since China began piloting the central bank digital currency (CBDC) in December 2019, up from total cumulative transaction values worth 87.6bn yuan (US$12bn) at the end of 2021, according to the People’s Bank of China (PBOC)... More
Consortium proposes European Digital Identity Wallet payments pilot
A consortium of government agencies, financial institutions, payments networks and technology providers from Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Latvia and Norway is proposing to launch a large-scale payments pilot to explore how the European Digital Identity Wallet being developed by the European Commission would support cross-border transactions... More
Finland to pilot digital identity network that lets citizens store credentials in their choice of digital wallet
Finland is to develop and pilot an interoperable digital identity network that will enable users to securely authenticate their identity and share personal data such as professional qualifications across a wide range of use cases using ID documents and credentials stored in a digital wallet... More
Finland to pilot digital passports for contactless cross-border travel
Residents of Finland could be the first in the European Union to test the use of a digital passport stored on their mobile phone to verify their identity when they travel abroad, according to media reports... More
Central banks in five SE Asian countries to create common contactless QR payments zone
The central banks of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand are to develop an interoperable cross-border payments system that will enable residents of each country to use their mobile banking app to make QR code-based payments for goods and services when visiting any of the other territories... More