The market for payment-enabled wearable devices will reach US$7.2bn in 2024, “driven by a surge in contactless payment adoption, as a result of growing usage of contactless cards and near field communication (NFC)-enabled mobile payments,” ABI Research predicts.... More
Dutch bank ING and supermarket giant Albert Heijn are to pilot a tokenized payments service which enables customers to pay for online purchases from their bank accounts without needing to provide retailers with account credentials... More
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
Indian telecommunications giant Reliance Jio has begun piloting Jio Pay, a new UPI-enabled payments service which includes support for both NFC and QR mobile payments... More
Spanish banking group BBVA is to pilot a service which will enable merchants to accept contactless payments on their Android smartphones without the need of additional hardware... More
Users of Singapore mobile network operator Singtel’s Dash mobile wallet can now earn reward points for each in-store and online payment and every overseas remittance they make using the service... More
Customers who rent upcycled denim clothing from Love Letter, the new rental-only collection from fashion brands Ganni and Levi’s, will be able to discover a garment’s history by tapping on an NFC-enabled patch on the clothes... More
Ukraine’s PrivatBank has begun to roll out biometric POS terminals for its facial recognition payments service FacePay24... More
Convenience store giant Circle K is to add support for cashierless shopping at one of its Phoenix, Arizona, outlets, “with other stores to follow”... More
Kroger, the US supermarket chain that has previously held out against the introduction of NFC payments, has begun piloting NFC-based contactless payments in 61 of its QFC grocery stores in Oregon and Washington states... More
PayPal has signed a deal with CVS Pharmacy to roll out its new QR code-based payments technology across more than 8,000 of the US retailer’s stores nationwide... More
A survey of merchants and consumers in eight countries around the world has found that the Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in “a dramatic shift to digital commerce” with nearly half of consumers (48%) saying they would not now shop at a store that only offers payment methods that require contact with a cashier or a shared device... More
Tucano Coffee has installed a payments system that enables customers to make contact-free payments using face biometrics at its Afi Park coffee shop in Bucharest, Romania... More
Croatian digital marketing agency Mint Media has launched a new service that lets consumers tap an NFC-enabled review board to quickly and easily leave a TripAdvisor, Google or Facebook review for a local business... More
The Alchemist, a busy cocktail bar and restaurant in the UK city of Manchester, is to roll out a new service that uses finger vein biometrics to provide a combined payments, age verification and permission-based contact tracing service that removes the need for customers to carry a physical ID card... More
A survey of 1,000 US consumers who are familiar with contactless payment cards has found that 75% now prefer using contactless cards as their primary payment method... More
Baltic banking group Citadele is offering customers in Latvia the option of ordering a payments ring that they will be able to use to make payments at any merchant equipped to accept contactless payments... More
Visa is piloting an instalment payments service in Russia and is moving towards a commercial launch in the US, the payments network has announced... More
Amazon has unveiled Dash Cart, a smart shopping trolley that automatically tracks the items shoppers place in their trolley as they shop — and then lets them simply exit the store when they have completed their shopping, with no need to visit a physical checkout... More
Supermarket giant Carrefour has become the first retailer in Europe to integrate its customer loyalty programme with Apple Pay, enabling shoppers both to pay for their purchases and collect loyalty points with a single tap of their iPhone or Apple Watch... More