This year’s Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival has used Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons to track how visitors moved around the site so that it can “shape and streamline the festival in the future”. More
US retail chain Target has launched an image recognition app that lets customers buy items from magazine adverts, catalogs and other media showing the retailer’s ‘In a Snap’ icon... More
Amazon Wallet, an Android app that lets users store gift cards and loyalty cards on their mobile phone, is now available to download from Google Play and the Amazon Appstore. Amazon Wallet also ships with the online retail giant’s recently launched Fire phone. More
Westpac has begun a host card emulation (HCE) pilot in New Zealand, enabling customers’ credit and debit card details to be securely stored in the cloud and then used at the point of sale to make mobile payments on their Android NFC device. More
UK payments technology specialist Consult Hyperion has unveiled a proof-of-concept solution that uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and host card emulation (HCE) to enable both iPhone and Android NFC phone owners to make MasterCard, Visa and other open loop EMV payments at the point of sale. More
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IBM and Monitise have formed a strategic alliance designed to help financial institutions deliver cloud-based mobile banking, payments and commerce solutions to their customers... More
The GSMA has published Mobile Commerce, NFC Coupons and Loyalty Acceptance, a technical proposal based on open standards that aims to provide “the tools, knowledge and methodology for mobile operators and the wider retail ecosystem to work together to develop a consistent approach to mobile loyalty and couponing”. More
Nintendo Wii U users in Japan can now use the NFC interface built into their GamePad controller to purchase games with a Suica contactless payment card... More
While convincing consumers to make use of a mobile wallet remains an issue for many providers, shoppers that do convert to mobile payments make extensive use of the technology, Nielsen’s Q2 2014 Mobile Wallet Report has found. More
CU Wallet, a mobile payments platform developed for US credit unions and majority owned by its cooperative members, has been adopted by 65 credit unions with a combined total of more than seven million customers, the company reports. More
Barclays’ Pingit P2P payments service has been used to send £540million since the launch of the service in February 2012, the bank has revealed, and the app has been downloaded 3m times... More
Card management app Wallaby, which helps holders of multiple credit cards view their balances and decide which is the best to use for any given transaction, is now available for use on Samsung Gear 2 smartwatches... More
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Apple’s new iTunes Pass service, which enables iOS users to buy iTunes credit from their mobile device rather than purchase a physical gift card, is now available internationally, 9to5Mac reports... More
Facebook is testing a ‘buy’ button which allows consumers to purchase products through the social media platform... More
Twitter has acquired card-linked offers platform Cardspring for an undisclosed sum... More
Korean mobile input technology specialist CrucialTec is developing a fingerprint authentication solution that will replace passwords when consumers access mobile banking services on their smartphones, Korea Herald reports... More
PayPal’s total payment volume (TPV) grew 29% with merchant services volume up 35% and on-eBay volume up 13% during the quarter to end June 2014, parent eBay has reported... More
Messaging app Snapchat has applied to extend its trademark into two classes relating to payments, Techcrunch reports... More
PayPal has introduced a rewards program for “our most active and enthusiastic customers who use PayPal online, in store, or on mobile devices”... More
PosteMobile, the mobile network provider owned by the Italian postal service, has signed an MVNO agreement with carrier Wind that will see the company extending NFC payments capabilities to all its three million customers... More