Facebook in talks with banks about mobile payments in Africa — BusinessDay — “Facebook is in talks with financial institutions about possible mobile payment collaborations in Africa, says Carolyn Everson, a vice president at the social networking group… ‘We’re definitely interested in helping facilitate payments — it’s more of a 2020 roadmap for us than a 2019 one — but we’re having those initial conversations with some of the larger financial services companies.”
More than half of all card-present transactions conducted globally (52.4%) between January and December 2016 used the EMV chip card standard, up from 35.8% for the same period in 2015, standards body EMVCo has revealed... More
Some 560m NFC secure elements will be shipped worldwide in 2017, representing a 12% increase from 2016, smart security industry association Eurosmart reveals. A total of 495m NFC secure elements were shipped in 2015, which increased by 1% in 2016 to reach 500m units. More
Safaricom, Vodacom deal clears the path for M-Pesa growth — Business Daily Africa — “The African subsidiary of British multinational Vodafone is set to take over 35 per cent ownership of Safaricom in a share swap deal that could pave the way for a more rapid spread of M-Pesa across the continent.”
More than 250,000 micro and small businesses across 11 markets in Sub-Saharan Africa will soon be able to accept in-store mobile payments through Mastercard’s Masterpass QR service... More
A digital cash service allowing consumers — including those without bank accounts — to load money onto a range of wearable items and make contactless payments in retail outlets will roll out across “eight or nine countries” in North America, Europe and Africa from April 2017... More
Visa’s mVisa QR-based mobile payment service is now live in India, Kenya and Rwanda and will soon be available in Egypt, Ghana, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Pakistan and Vietnam, the company has announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona... More
Thousands of small-scale farmers across East Africa will soon be using their feature phones to buy, sell and receive payments for their goods through a mobile app and SMS service developed by Mastercard... More
More than two fifths of all card-present transactions conducted globally (42%) between July 2015 and June 2016 used the EMV chip card standard, up from 33% for the previous 12-month period, standards body EMVCo has revealed... More
Some 120m mobile wallets in Sub-Saharan Africa are now connected to mobile financial services provider MFS Africa’s MFS Hub... More
Pan-African banking group Ecobank has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Mastercard to roll out Masterpass QR mobile payments across 33 African countries... More
Customers of Africa’s Absa Bank can now conduct banking transactions through Facebook Messenger using the bank’s ChatBanking feature... More
Kenyan carrier Safaricom is testing a new PIN-based NFC-enabled ‘Tap-and-Go’ card for its M-Pesa mobile money service... More
Mastercard has unveiled an enhanced version of its Masterpass digital payment platform, adding in-store NFC mobile payment capability to the service that has so far only been available for online and in-app payments. More
The global mobile ticketing market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 16% between 2016 and 2020, according to Technavio... More
Africa’s Absa Bank has launched ChatBanking, a service that will let customers conduct day-to-day banking on social network Twitter... More
Orange is to introduce NFC into its Orange Money service by the end of this year, allowing users to make payments by tapping an NFC sticker on their mobile phone on an NFC reader supplied by French startup Famoco... More
PARTNER NEWS: Prepaid card processor Tutuka has begun the implementation of digital payment solutions provider Proxama’s Digital Enablement Platform (DEP) for a fully independent cloud-based payment (CBP) solution in the Middle East, Asia and Africa... More
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