Seven in ten consumers are confident with the security contactless cards/mobile wallets provide and 88% report a consistently positive user experience with NFC contactless technologies, a survey of consumers in nine countries around the world has found... More
Merchants in more than 15 countries around the world are now able to use Android NFC smartphones and tablets to accept contactless payments with no additional hardware required, Visa has announced... More
The Scottish Government is to pilot a national digital identity system that enables citizens to store their identity information in their own ‘Attribute Store’ and then “share these attributes with other public sector service providers as and when needed”... More
Customers of Pret A Manger sandwich shops across London and Manchester can now make cashless charitable donations in store using their contactless payment card or mobile device... More
A working group set up by seven central banks and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has laid out a set of ground rules for the successful issuance of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs)... More
Public transportation users in the West Midlands will be able to use a new ‘tap and cap’ smart ticketing platform to make contactless payments for their journeys across the UK region’s entire rail, bus and tram network by 2022, according to plans revealed by Transport for West Midlands (TfWM)... More
Apple Pay users travelling on First Bus services in the UK can now pay for their fares with a tap of their iPhone or Apple Watch without having to authenticate their payment with Face ID or Touch ID... More
Holders of Edenred prepaid incentive and rewards cards in the UK can now add their card to Apply Pay and make mobile and online payments for food, fuel, transport, parking and corporate transactions with their iPhone, Apple Watch or other Apple Pay-enabled device... More
The popularity of QR codes has “skyrocketed” in the USA and UK this year, with 53% of consumers saying they want to see QR codes used more broadly in future and 43% that they plan to use a QR code as a payment method soon, a new survey has revealed... More
Residents and small businesses in nine UK communities are taking part in a series of pilot schemes which aim to improve access to cash in rural and disadvantaged areas, where individuals remain dependent on cash but where bank branches and ATMs have closed down and local cash infrastructure is under threat... More
UK residents can now make charity donations using an open banking payments service that allows them to transfer money directly from their bank account to a charity’s bank account by scanning a QR code with their mobile phone, reducing the recipient’s processing costs and automatically enabling Gift Aid tax benefits on each donation... More
Holders of Vanquis Bank’s credit-builder credit cards in the UK can now make instant payments into their account from any major UK bank without using a debit card and receive instant updates on their available credit via the Vanquis mobile banking app... More
Customers at a coffee shop in Budapest, Hungary, and a number of small city-centre retailers in Guadalajara, Spain, are piloting a biometric payment service which allows them to make payments at the point of sale using their face and palm without needing a card, smartphone or other mobile device... More
The Lowry Hotel in Manchester, UK, is piloting a graphene-based contactless payment system that enables restaurant customers to pay their bill by tapping their smartphone on a till receipt imprinted with an electronic antenna... More
One in three UK consumers (32%) are in favour of further raising the country’s current contactless spending limit from £45 (US$59), according to a YouGov survey... More
Samsung has announced the availability of a digital-first Samsung Pay Card designed to give customers in the UK “a better banking experience through their Samsung smartphone and smartwatch, whilst gaining the rewards they want along the way”... 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
Public transport users in Los Angeles will be able to add their TAP transit card to their iPhone or Apple Watch “this year”, LA Metro has announced... More
American Express, Discover, Mastercard and Visa have announced that “they are each beginning technical preparations for global expansion” of Click to Pay, the single buy button solution for online merchants based on the EMVCo Secure Remote Commerce (SRC) standard... More
The UK’s NatWest bank has launched Payit, an online payments service that uses open banking to make it possible for merchants to accept payments directly from consumers’ bank accounts... More