Qatar Central Bank is to launch a national contactless prepaid debit card that will enable both banked and unbanked citizens to make contactless payments at the point of sale, withdraw cash from ATMs and make online purchases... More
ecommerce
Danske Bank lets Danish consumers add domestic payment cards to Apple Pay
Customers of Danske Bank in Denmark can now add their Dankort debit card to Apple Pay and use it to make mobile payments using the country’s Dankort domestic payment system... More
One in four card payments in Australia are now made using a mobile wallet
A quarter of all debit and credit card transactions made in Australia are now made using a mobile wallet (25%), up from 10% in the March quarter of 2020, according to figures from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA). ... More
Nearly half of UK consumers now make mobile payments every week
More than four in ten UK consumers now make in-person and ecommerce purchases from their mobile device on a weekly basis (43%), making mobile payments “the predominant form of payment” in the country with mobile commerce transaction values predicted to reach £100m (US$112m) by 2024, according to research published by payment services provider Rapyd... More
European Central Bank to test prototype digital euro payment solutions across key use cases
The European Central Bank (ECB) is to trial five prototype digital euro payment solutions to test how front-end user interfaces and back-end infrastructure can be integrated to enable users to make peer-to-peer, point-of-sale and ecommerce payments with the proposed central bank digital currency... More
World Bank reports ‘global surge’ in digital payments during pandemic
The Covid-19 pandemic has driven a “global surge” in digital payments with two-thirds of adults worldwide now making or receiving digital payments, rising from 35% in 2014 to 57% in 2021 in developing economies and from 88% in 2014 to 95% in 2021 in high-income economies, according to the World Bank’s Global Findex 2021 database... More
Google launches multipurpose digital wallet with support for digital IDs, tickets and payment cards
Google is rolling out a digital wallet that will enable users to store, use and present digital identity documents and driving licences as well as payment cards, transit and event tickets, boarding and loyalty passes, health documents such as Covid-19 vaccination certificates, hotel keys and office badges on their Android smartphone or Wear OS smartwatch... More
Bank of Ghana lays out core design principles for CBDC pilot
The Bank of Ghana (BOG) is to pilot a two-tier token-based retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) that can be used with either a digital wallet app managed by a financial institution or a physical hardware wallet such as a contactless smart card that can be used offline and by unbanked consumers... More
OEM Pay ecommerce transaction volumes to exceed 30.7bn by 2026
Consumers worldwide will use payment services provided by smartphone makers and other original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to make more than 30.7bn ecommerce transactions by 2026, an increase of more than 24.5bn on the 6.1bn predicted for 2022, according to a forecast by Juniper Research... More
China’s JD.com lets consumers make online payments from digital yuan hard wallets using NFC
Chinese consumers can now make online payments for purchases from the JD.com ecommerce app using digital yuan stored on a physical card or hard wallet via their Android NFC smartphone... More
FBI warns of cybercrime risks as businesses use QR codes ‘more frequently’ during pandemic
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the US has released a public service announcement (PSA) warning that “cybercriminals are tampering with QR codes” in order to steal data and funds and is advising consumers to “practice caution” when using them... More
More than half of Asia Pacific consumers make digital payments at least once a week
Nine in 10 consumers in the Asia Pacific region have used mobile payment apps at least once during the past 12 months, while more than half have used digital payment methods at least once a week and a sixth have made a digital payment for the first time since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic (15%), according to research published by Kaspersky... More
Majority of Europeans would be happy with contactless transaction limits of up to €150
The majority of European consumers would feel comfortable with contactless transaction limits of up to €150 (US$169), three times the current European Union limit of €50 (US$56), according to Payments Europe research... More
Westpac expands dynamic CVVs to Android phones
Customers of Australia’s Westpac bank with an Android smartphone will soon be able to make payments using a digital card secured by a dynamic card verification code (CVC) that changes every 24 hours... More
Digital wallet transaction volumes to top US$10tn globally by 2025
The global transaction volume of in-store and ecommerce digital wallet payments will exceed US$10tn by 2025, according to a forecast commissioned by Discover Global Network... More
Australia accredits Eftpos as its first private digital identity exchange
The Australian government has accredited Eftpos as the first private sector digital identity exchange operator under the country’s Trusted Digital Identity Framework (TDIF), enabling the use of the payments network’s ConnectID solution across a wide range of online transactions that require digital ID verification... More
Emirates NBD records 34m contactless transactions during eight-week rewards programme
Customers of Emirates NBD bank in the United Arab Emirates completed 34m contactless transactions during eight weeks of the bank’s ‘Get Together. Go Contactless’ promotion. “The ‘Get Together. Go Contactless’ campaign has accelerated the adoption of contactless payments substantially,” the bank says. More
DBS Bank lets Singapore customers self-manage card security options in real time
Customers of DBS Bank in Singapore can now lock or unlock their debit or credit cards, enable or disable certain types of transaction — including contactless and mobile payments — and set a monthly spending limit for their card accounts from their digital banking app in real time... More
Bahrain bank unveils kids’ NFC payments band that lets parents monitor transactions
Customers of Bahrain Islamic Bank (BisB) can now open a prepaid card account that enables their children to make contactless in-store payments with an NFC-enabled wristband and allows parents to digitally issue allowances and monitor transactions... More
Vipps, MobilePay and Pivo to merge and launch single digital wallet across Scandinavia
Bank-owned Nordic mobile payment providers Vipps in Norway, MobilePay in Denmark and Pivo in Finland are to merge and will create a single digital wallet that consumers can use in all three countries, as well as for cross-border payments... More