The European Payments Initiative (EPI) is to begin piloting a digital wallet that will enable users to make instant person-to-person (P2P) payments in Germany and France as a first step towards rolling out a unified payment system that will support “a comprehensive range of transaction types” across Europe... More
Buyers of Swatch watches in Thailand can now opt to make contactless payments with their NFC wearable device using the Swiss-based company’s SwatchPay! contactless payments service. More
The number of registered mobile money accounts globally rose by 13% from 1.4bn in 2021 to 1.6bn in 2022 and total mobile money transaction values grew by 22% from US$1tn to US$1.26tn over the same period, according to research by the GSMA... More
Apple users in Japan will soon be able to store and top up a digital version of rail operator JR West’s ICOCA prepaid contactless transit card in Apple Wallet and use it to pay their fares for bus and rail journeys with a tap of their iPhone or Apple Watch... More
New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is to begin installing vending machines that will enable passengers to purchase and top up its contactless Omny EMV fare payments card at all 472 stations across the city’s subway network rather than having to visit a retail store... More
Fans of Sunderland AFC football club in the UK will be able to gain entry to home games at the Stadium of Light from the beginning of the 2023-24 season using a digital NFC season pass or match ticket stored on their smartphone or smart watch at stadium turnstiles... More
Customers using Yahoo Japan’s convenience store in the Yoyogi Uehara district of Tokyo can now opt to pay for their purchases at a self-service checkout with their face using biometric payment... More
Freight brokers in the US can now transfer advance payments for fuel to carriers and their drivers using a mobile wallet app that allows drivers to make contactless fuel payments from their smartphone... More
Merchants in Taiwan have become the first outside the USA to be able to accept in-store contactless payments on iPhones using Apple’s Tap to Pay software point of sale (sPOS) feature... More
Employee reward and incentive programmes provider Halo is trialling a digital card provisioning solution that enables users to quickly and easily add a virtual prepaid rewards card directly to their digital wallet without needing to download an app or add their bank details... More
Residents of India will soon be able to make mobile payments for goods and services when visiting Nepal from their smartphone’s digital wallet using an interoperable cross-border payments system to be implemented between the two countries... More
Lithuanian supermarket chain IKI has opened its second contactless convenience store in the capital Vilnius, enabling customers to check in at the store door by tapping their payment card, mobile wallet or retailer’s app, select the products they want and pay for their purchases without needing to scan them, by tapping their payment card as they leave... More
Customers at Whole Foods Market stores in the greater Denver area in the US state of Colorado can now gain access to the supermarket and make contactless payments for their purchases with their palm... More
Merchants in South Korea can now opt to accept Apple Pay payments on their smartphone without needing to purchase and install NFC readers at the point of sale as a number of new or upgraded software POS solutions roll out across the country... More
The World Expo 2025 in the Japanese city of Osaka will be the first world’s fair to be entirely cashless and is developing a dedicated blockchain-enabled Expo Digital Wallet that visitors will be able to use to make contactless payments with their smartphone both inside and outside the venue as well as after the event... More
The number of passengers purchasing QR code mobile tickets for journeys on Kochi Metro services in the Indian state of Kerala has increased twenty-fold since the rapid transit system launched a promotion offering a 10% discount for peak-time and 50% discount for off-peak travel to mobile ticketing users... More
Passengers on buses in North Wales can now make contactless fare payments on services run by 25 different local operators with their debit or credit card using an interoperable fare-capped ticketing system rolled out across nearly 200 routes in the region... More
Residents of Singapore and Malaysia can now make contactless QR code-based payments for goods and payments in either country using an interoperable cross-border payments system launched by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM)... More
The number of payment cards issued via digital card issuance platforms worldwide will increase from 500m in 2023 to more than 1.3bn by 2027, according to a Juniper Research forecast... More
The proposed retail digital euro should be appropriately designed in collaboration with the private sector, create value for end-users, preserve financial stability and incentivise and enable private sector intermediaries to add solutions and services within the central bank digital currency (CBDC) ecosystem, according to a European Banking Federation (EBF) vision paper... More