Starbucks customers in South Korea have become the first to be able to place their order at the coffee shop chain using their mobile phone. The new service is integrated with Starbucks Coffee Korea’s mobile app and is available at all 600+ Starbucks outlets in the country. Customers can also pay for their drink with their mobile device. More
Tesco-backed coffee chain Harris+Hoole has updated its mobile app to enable customers to order and pay at any of its 36 outlets without having to touch, tap or scan at a counter. More
French fashion retailer Comptoir des Cotonniers is using a platform developed by Powa Technologies to turn posters, billboards, magazines, cafe table tops, postcards, flyers and clothing into ‘virtual boutiques’ that let consumers order and pay for goods with their mobile phone. More
GE Lighting and US startup Bytelight have unveiled a marketing platform that lets merchants use LED lighting installed in and around their stores to send offers, directions to particular products and information services to shoppers, based on their precise location within a retail store. More
Apple is holding talks with a number of upmarket US retailers to gauge how interested they would be in the iPhone maker introducing its own mobile payments service, according to 9to5Mac which cites “a source with direct knowledge of the talks”. More
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US startup QuickCoin is making it possible for Facebook users to send Bitcoins to friends from within the social networking platform... More
Meadowhall Shopping Centre in Sheffield, UK is to use iBeacon technology to gamify a shopping event, with brands providing offers, discounts, pampering freebies and prize giveaways. Participating retailers include Krispy Kreme, Hotel Chocolat, Cath Kidston and House of Fraser. More
Upmarket UK department store chain John Lewis has chosen iBeacon, smart label and in-store digital engagement start-up firms to join JLAB, its first technology business incubator... More
Customers of Finnish hamburger chain Hesburger can today pay for food, connect their loyalty card and redeem offers using Swedish mobile wallet app SEQR... More
The retail giant is introducing a digital receipt service across its 4,200 US stores, enabling shoppers to store a digital version of their receipt in a mobile app by scanning a QR code on their paper receipt or by entering their mobile number at the point of sale. Customers will then be able to use the receipts to create a shopping list on their device, making the in-store experience “easier and more convenient”. More
More than 500,000 UK bank account holders have signed up for Paym mobile payments since its launch last month, the Payments Council reports, and the organisation is now looking at adding additional proxies to the service, such as email addresses and driving license numbers, as well as making Paym available for other types of payment requests and international transfers. More
Prepaid voucher provider Groupon has launched an iPad-based point-of-sale terminal that uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to let merchants “instantly recognize their Groupon customers as they enter their business, seamlessly redeem Groupons and save time and money.” More
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UK-based mobile payments, loyalty and rewards startup Yoyo has raised US$5m to expand its service. The move follows a launch at the Imperial College London campus in January 2014, with further rollouts due to take place at London’s University of Westminster and University of Greenwich. More
Canada-based coffee chain Tim Hortons has expanded its mobile payments service, first launched using host card emulation (HCE) technology in December 2013, with the introduction of barcode-based mobile payments across its outlets in the USA and Canada. More
McDonald’s Austria is rolling out a new mobile ordering and payments service that lets users place their orders on their mobile device and pay using PayPal, a credit card or a stored value Paybox account. More
Standard Bank, one of South Africa’s largest financial services groups, has launched a service that allows small merchants to accept mobile payments by simply placing a QR code at their point of sale, with no POS terminal required. More
Customers at 45 Total gas stations in Uganda can now use their Airtel Money account to pay for fuel and services as well as make in-store purchases with their mobile phone. The service is to be rolled out across all 125 Total stations in the country in the coming weeks. More
Russia’s Sberbank, Europe’s third largest bank with more than 100million customers, has begun piloting NFC payments in Moscow using embedded secure elements. It will follow the trial with a service using host card emulation (HCE) later this year. More
There will be more than 1.5billion mobile wallets in use around the world by 2018, according to a new forecast from Juniper Research, representing one in five handsets and up from one in 10 at the end of 2013. More
Deutsche Telekom’s MyWallet NFC platform is now available to customers of Slovak Telekom, a Slovakian carrier majority owned by Deutsche Telekom... More
