Starbucks’ Mobile Order & Pay service is now live in Portland, Oregon ahead of a planned nationwide roll out across the US that will begin in 2015... More
Starbucks launches Mobile Order & Pay in Portland
Loyalty
AirAsia picks Yoyo for mobile payments
UK startup Yoyo is to provide a mobile payments and loyalty app to Malaysian budget airline AirAsia, City AM reports... More
Magyar Telekom launches NFC in Hungary
Magyar Telekom, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom and a member of the Hungarian Mobile Wallet Association, has launched the MobilTarca NFC mobile wallet in Hungary after a successful pilot that began in July last year... More
Latvian merchants and ski resorts adopt NFC loyalty platform
Latvian startup Walmoo has launched a mobile loyalty platform that uses standard NFC phones or tablets to provide customers with the ability to redeem coupons, discounts and offers... More
Dunkin’ Mobile gets 10m downloads
Dunkin’ Donuts’ Dunkin’ Mobile payments and rewards app has been downloaded more than 10m times since its launch in 2012 and two million customers have signed up for its DD Perks loyalty program, available on mobile and via a plastic card, the US merchant has revealed... More
Ugo launches open NFC payments and rewards wallet in Canada
Ugo, an open NFC mobile wallet developed by Canadian banks President’s Choice Financial and TD Bank Group, is now available to customers of all three major Canadian carriers who own one of a range of supported BlackBerry 10 and Android NFC devices... More
Drop offers beacon-based payments
Payments startup Drop has launched a mobile payments and loyalty solution that uses Bluetooth beacons to let shoppers order and pay from up to 200 feet away before picking up their purchase and leaving without having to wait in line at the point of sale... More
Saatchi & Saatchi designs beacon loyalty rewards for Japan’s TenTen Technologies
Japanese startup TenTen Technologies is to offer retailers USB-based Bluetooth beacons that plug into POS terminals and vending machines so that rewards can be issued automatically to users of the company’s mobile app when they make a purchase... More
Softcard adds United MileagePlus cards
United Airlines and Chase are adding support for United MileagePlus credit cards to the Softcard mobile wallet... More
Sainsbury’s tests mobile shopping and payments app
UK supermarket chain Sainsbury’s is to pilot a mobile shopping app that allows customers to build a virtual basket of favourite products from anywhere before they visit a store, get directions when they arrive at the store to find the items in their virtual basket, scan selected items as they shop, and then check out and pay with their mobile phone... More
Dairy Queen expands mobile loyalty and payment test
US fast food chain Dairy Queen has expanded pilot testing of its myDQ mobile loyalty, offers and payments service to more than sixty locations in the states of Colorado and Nebraska ahead of a planned rollout of the solution to all its 4,500 US franchise locations... More
LoyaltyGrid uses NFC tags to let luxury brands reward their customers at the point of sale
Dutch startup LoyaltyGrid has unveiled a solution that lets luxury brands use NFC tags embedded in product packaging to guarantee the authenticity of their products — and deliver rewards, discounts, exclusive content, invitations to special events and other incentives directly to their customers... More
Pivo passes 100,000 active users
Finnish mobile wallet Pivo has now been downloaded to 300,000 smartphones and a third of users — more than 100,000 — are making use of the app every day... More
Starbucks claims a 90% share of the US mobile payments market
Starbucks accounted for more than 90% of all mobile transactions in the US last year, the coffee chain’s CEO Howard Schultz has revealed during a fourth quarter earnings call in which he also set out plans to continue to dominate the mobile payments space. More
Starwood Hotels picks Bluetooth for mobile room keys that work on smartphones and Apple Watch
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide has unveiled a mobile keyless entry system that will allow guests to use smartphones to unlock rooms using Bluetooth at 150 hotels around the globe by early 2015. The service will also be available via an Apple Watch app when the new wearable device ships next year, the hotel chain has told NFC World+. More
SK Planet to roll out Bluetooth beacons to 10,000 stores across Korea
SK Planet has launched a new Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) service in Korea that offers customers reward points and benefits directly on their mobile device whenever they enter a participating retail location. The BLE beacon-based solution is expected to be installed in more than 10,000 stores by next month. More
MCX prepares to open its wallet to NFC and bank cards
MCX is now open to supporting both NFC and Bluetooth Low Energy for payments and is in conversation with credit card issuers about opening up its CurrentC mobile wallet to payment cards, CEO Dekkers Davidson and COO Scott Rankin have told reporters... More
White paper explores the role of TSMs in cross-border NFC payments
A 26-page white paper that explores the role of the trusted service manager (TSM) and whether they can help or hinder the globalisation of NFC services is now available for download in the NFC World+ Knowledge Centre... More
Google discusses Wallet plans
Google has talked about its plans with regard to its Google Wallet app and mobile payments, hinting at possible partnerships and insisting that the company is still trying to “get it right.”... More
Beep’nGo hits 5m downloads
Mobeam’s mobile coupon and offer app Beep’nGo has now surpassed five million downloads to compatible Android devices... More