Customers at more than 50 branches of Russian food retail group X5’s Perekrestok supermarkets can now pay for their purchases at self-checkout devices “with a glance” using a biometric payments solution that uses 3D face recognition technology... More
Retail
Chinese banks issue digital yuan wallets to Shanghai customers
Some 8,500 consumers in the Chinese city of Shanghai have been given e-wallets containing digital yuan as part of the country’s ongoing pilot scheme for its central bank digital currency (CBDC)... More
Piraeus Bank adds NFC payments to its mobile banking app
PARTNER NEWS: Piraeus Bank has launched an NFC mobile payments service that uses Antelop Solutions’ digital card and tokenization platform to let customers digitize their Mastercard or Visa cards and make payments from directly within their mobile banking app... More
OTP Bank lets Romanian merchants turn their NFC phone into a contactless POS terminal
Merchants in Romania can now accept contactless payments on their Android NFC smartphone or tablet using a software point of sale (sPOS) solution launched by OTP Bank... More
Paytm lets Indian merchants accept contactless payments on NFC phones
Merchants in India can now use a standard Android NFC smartphone to accept contactless payments using a software point of sale (sPOS) solution being rolled out by mobile payments giant Paytm... More
Amex to offer Prada payments bracelet to Centurion members
Holders of an American Express Centurion card will soon be able to make purchases by linking their card to a wearable contactless payments chip embedded in a leather bracelet created by Italian fashion house Prada... More
Crédit Agricole du Languedoc pilots Dejamobile software POS solution
PARTNER NEWS: French bank Crédit Agricole du Languedoc is trialling a payments acceptance solution that uses Dejamobile’s ReadyToTap Payment for Merchants technology to enable merchants to accept contactless transactions on a standard Android NFC smartphone... More
Amazon opens its first cashierless store outside US in London
Amazon has opened its first cashierless grocery store outside the US on London’s Ealing Broadway, enabling consumers to access the store and pay for their purchases by downloading a QR code to their mobile device and scanning it at the shop entrance... More
UK to more than double contactless spending limit to £100
The UK is to increase the limit for contactless transactions from £45 (US$63) to £100 (US$140), the UK Treasury has announced... More
Fidesmo Pay expands to Switzerland
EXHIBITOR NEWS: Fidesmo is launching its Fidesmo Pay wearable payments service in Switzerland, enabling customers of Swiss bank Cembra to upload their bank cards to NFC-enabled wearables and use them to make contactless payments... More
Mobile wallet transaction volumes overtake cash payments in stores
Contactless in-store payments made with a mobile wallet worldwide exceeded in-store cash payments for the first time during 2020, new research reveals... More
Tencent and Ant to integrate digital yuan wallets into mobile banking apps
Tencent-backed WeBank and Ant-backed MyBank are conducting “preliminary work under the guidance of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC)” in order to integrate the digital yuan wallet into their payment and banking services, according to a China Securities report... More
European Payments Initiative issues call for technical partners
A group of more than 30 European banks and acquirers planning to build a unified payment system for merchants and consumers across Europe is seeking technical partners to develop the system’s central infrastructure... More
Apple Pay goes live in Mexico
Apple Pay has rolled out in Mexico, with support for American Express and for Mastercards issued by the country’s Banorte and Citibanamex banks... More
Japanese convenience store trials face and palm biometrics for checkout-free shopping
The Green Leaves+ shop-and-go store in the Yokohama Techno Tower Hotel in Japan is piloting a biometrics-enabled checkout-free service that allows customers to enter the store by verifying their identity with just their face and a swipe of their palm... More
Amazon to build digital currency payments solution?
Amazon is recruiting a tech team that will be tasked with building “innovative payment products for customers in emerging markets” that will enable “customers to convert their cash into digital currency” to purchase “goods and/or services like Prime Video”, a job advertisement posted by the company reveals... More
Antelop launches one-stop token service provider hub for digital card issuers
PARTNER NEWS: Antelop Solutions has introduced a unified issuer token service provider hub that enables banks to simply and securely manage every stage of the digital card issuing and management process, from card enrolment to token lifecycle management... More
China’s central bank expands digital yuan pilot to Beijing
The People’s Bank of China has launched the first large-scale giveaway of the country’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) to be held in Beijing and has distributed 10m digital yuan (US$1.55m) to 50,000 participants in a ‘red envelope’ lottery... More
Central Bank of Iran to introduce NFC mobile payments
The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) has announced plans to introduce NFC contactless payments in the country, enabling consumers to upload their bank card information to their mobile phone and use their device to make in-store purchases at the point of sale... More
Chinese consumers now make three mobile payments every day
Chinese consumers made an average of three mobile payments a day during 2020, while 98% of the Chinese population consider mobile payments to be their most frequently used transaction method, an increase of five percentage points on last year, a new survey reveals... More