A third of Indian households across a range of income groups now use digital payment methods, but “this can easily go up to 50% given high desire to use,” research from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and People Research on India’s Consumer Economy (PRICE) reveals... More
Research
Researchers leverage NFC and blockchain to tackle fraud in the rare whisky trade
Collectors, retailers and auction houses will soon be able to authenticate bottles of rare vintage whisky by using their smartphone to tap an anti-tamper NFC bottle closure that connects to a digital certification record held on a private blockchain... More
Visa proposes CBDC protocol that lets consumers exchange digital cash via Bluetooth or NFC
Visa has published a research paper exploring an offline payment system (OPS) protocol for central bank digital currencies (CBDC) that would enable users to make digital payments to other users even when both sender and recipient are temporarily offline or unable to connect to a bank, payment network or other intermediary... More
Researchers unveil wearable technology that enables digital communication through human touch
Researchers at Purdue University in Indiana, USA, have developed a prototype wearable device that enables users to securely transmit a password, photograph or other digital information and potentially make card and mobile payments simply by touching a sensor with their fingertip... More
Economists propose single global digital currency
A single global retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) and a single global 24/7 payment system could be an “optimum solution” as the basis for a new payment model “enhancing market discipline and fairness to all stakeholders”, according to a new paper... More
Penn State researchers develop NFC sensors that can be printed directly onto human skin
Researchers at Penn State University in the USA have developed a wearable wireless sensor that can be printed directly onto a person’s skin to take precise biometric measurements and transmit data to an NFC smartphone or similar device... More
Mashreq Bank rolls out contactless payments on standard NFC phones
Owners of small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) in the UAE can now accept contactless payments on standard Android NFC smartphones, with no need for additional hardware... More
Facebook digital currency researchers publish ultra high-speed payments paper
A digital transaction settlement system being developed by researchers working on Facebook’s Novi cryptocurrency digital wallet app could support up to 160,000 transactions per second, “about 7x the peak transaction rate of the Visa payments network”, according to a paper published by the research team... More
Mastercard to add merchant logos to transaction records
Mastercard users will soon be able to more easily identify and verify whether payments recorded on their online statements are legitimate as the card issuer starts linking merchant logos to any transactions a user has made with participating companies... More
Juniper forecasts ‘permanent shift’ to contactless ticketing
Mobile ticketing transaction volumes, including contactless, in-app and mobile messaging ticket purchases, will increase from 6.8bn transactions in 2020 to 16.9bn in 2022, heralding a permanent shift towards contactless ticketing, according to a forecast by Juniper Research... More
DBS reports on the digital currency market in Asia
Asia is leading the way in the use and development of digital currencies and remains the world’s largest digital payments market, with China alone accounting for more than half of the total transaction value worldwide, according to a new research paper published by Singapore’s DBS Bank... More
BIS reports on central bank digital currency initiatives around the world
Countries with digitised and innovative economies are more likely to be developing central bank digital currency (CBDC) projects while those with a larger informal economy are tending to focus on creating retail CBDCs, a working paper published by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) reports... More
Japanese banks and card issuers join digital currency study group
Three of Japan’s largest banking groups have signed up to participate in a study group that aims to build a “digital settlement infrastructure using valuable digital currencies”... More
Australia records sharp increase in NFC mobile payments adoption
A total of 10.8% of Australians are now using Apple Pay, Google Pay or Samsung Pay, up from 7.1% a year ago, a new report from market researchers Roy Morgan has found... More
NNG reports on the user experience required to successfully deliver face-based payments in stores
Face-based payments offer the potential to improve customer convenience and increase checkout speeds in stores but require consumer education to be built into the user experience to alleviate security concerns, an in-depth study of services currently on offer in China has found... More
Mobile payment overtakes contactless cards for young Irish consumers
Impact of Covid-19 on spending behaviour revealed as more Irish consumers using contactless and digital wallets — AIB — “Digital wallet (Apple Pay and Google Pay) spend now accounts for 37% of all in-store transactions by those who are under 25… Contactless using a debit card is the most popular choice of in-store payment method among all age cohorts, except those under 25 where it accounts for 28% of spend.”
BIS reports on likely impact of Covid-19 on cash, cards and mobile payments
The pandemic may result in increased calls to defend the role of cash, moves towards more quickly introducing central bank digital currencies and a structural increase in the use of mobile, card and online payments, a Bank for International Settlements (BIS) research bulletin analysing the likely impact of Covid-19 says... More
Digital wallets to account for 52% of global ecommerce sales by 2023
Digital wallets will be used to pay for ecommerce transactions valued at more than US$3tn a year by 2023, a new study has found... More
Mastercard unveils plan to let transit operators use biometrics to identify passengers
Mastercard is working with transport operators on the development of new biometric ticketing solutions that will make it possible for passengers to be automatically identified as they board a service, the payments network has revealed... More
Researchers use NFC to power epidermal VR feedback patch
Scientists at Northwestern University in the USA have unveiled a prototype ‘epidermal VR’ patch that is powered by NFC and holds the promise of enabling sensory feedback to be added to a wide range of gaming, entertainment, communication and medical applications... More