Amazon is recruiting a tech team that will be tasked with building “innovative payment products for customers in emerging markets” that will enable “customers to convert their cash into digital currency” to purchase “goods and/or services like Prime Video”, a job advertisement posted by the company reveals... More
Contactless
Antelop launches one-stop token service provider hub for digital card issuers
PARTNER NEWS: Antelop Solutions has introduced a unified issuer token service provider hub that enables banks to simply and securely manage every stage of the digital card issuing and management process, from card enrolment to token lifecycle management... More
China’s central bank expands digital yuan pilot to Beijing
The People’s Bank of China has launched the first large-scale giveaway of the country’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) to be held in Beijing and has distributed 10m digital yuan (US$1.55m) to 50,000 participants in a ‘red envelope’ lottery... More
Accor to let hotel guests access their rooms with their smartphone
Guests staying at hotels owned by France-based hospitality giant Accor will soon be able to open their rooms and access other hotel facilities contactlessly using a digital key uploaded to their smartphone on check-in... More
Chinese consumers now make three mobile payments every day
Chinese consumers made an average of three mobile payments a day during 2020, while 98% of the Chinese population consider mobile payments to be their most frequently used transaction method, an increase of five percentage points on last year, a new survey reveals... More
Barclays adds digital receipts to mobile app
Barclays bank account holders in the UK can now automatically receive an itemised digital receipt in their banking app every time they use their debit card to make an in-store or online purchase from a retailer or food outlet that has signed up to support the service... More
Covid-19 pandemic cuts demand for plastic cards
The total value of the global plastic cards market has fallen by US$3bn over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, with the number manufactured worldwide falling by 19.7% from 37.1bn in 2019 to 29.8bn in 2020, according to the International Card Manufacturers Association (ICMA)... More
Transport for New South Wales to pilot RFID tags for transit ticketing
High school students at Magdalene Catholic College in Sydney, Australia, are to trial RFID transit ticketing tags that come with an operating distance of up to two metres, enabling an on-board reader to detect students automatically as they walk onto a bus... More
Dayton RTA adds account-based ticketing to mobile transit app
Public transportation users in the US state of Ohio’s Greater Dayton area can now use their mobile phone to make capped contactless fare payments from a stored value account, rather than having to purchase tickets or select a fare in advance... More
Amazon lets customers pay with their palm at three more US stores
Amazon is enabling customers at three more of its Amazon Go outlets in Seattle, USA, to use a contactless palm scanning device to gain access to the store and pay for their purchases with their palm print... More
Survey: Eight in ten central banks are now actively engaged in digital currency projects
More than four-fifths of the world’s central banks (86%) are engaged in “some form of work” on a central bank digital currency (CBDC), up from “about one third” in 2019, according to a Bank for International Settlements (BIS) survey... More
LA Metro lets Android users add their transit card to their NFC phone
Passengers on public transportation services in the US city of Los Angeles can now add their TAP transit card to their Android smartphone and make contactless fare payments on the LA Metro and 25 other TAP-enabled transit agencies across LA County... More
FCA proposes increase in UK contactless spending limit
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is proposing to increase the limit for single contactless payments in the country from £45 (US$62) to £100 (US$137) and the limit for cumulative contactless transactions from £130 (US$179) to £200 (US$274)... More
Survey reports on consumer attitudes to using mobile apps for transit ticketing
Nearly one in two Americans (46%) are most likely or definitely interested in mobile payment options for public transit ticketing “for a safer mass transit journey”, a survey of consumers in 28 countries around the world has found... More
Flipkart lets customers use reward points for in-store payments
Customers of Indian ecommerce giant Flipkart can now use SuperCoin reward points earned by shopping on the platform to make in-store purchases at retail outlets across the country by scanning a QR code at participating merchants... More
Chinese banks launch mobile wallets that let customers transact in digital yuan
At least eight major banks, including Hong Kong-based China CITIC Bank, have now introduced or are in the process of introducing digital wallets that support China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC), according to local media reports... More
American Airlines launches mobile health passport for passengers travelling to the USA
International passengers arriving at US airports on American Airlines flights can now verify that they have had a negative Covid-19 test before travelling via a digital health passport on their mobile phone... More
Mastercard unveils enhanced contactless payment specifications
Mastercard has announced new specifications for contactless payments that will offer quantum-resistant security via “next-generation algorithms and cryptographic key strengths”, enhanced privacy at the checkout and “help ensure any device truly can be a payment device”... More
ST launches NFC Type 5 tags with Augmented NDEF for dynamically updated information exchange at longer ranges
PARTNER NEWS: STMicroelectronics has released two new NFC Type 5 tags that combine NFC and RFID technology, Augmented NDEF and anti-tampering to let developers “leverage NFC contactless communication in new and imaginative ways for applications in consumer engagement, brand recognition, supply-chain management and access control”... More
BNP Paribas to offer biometric payment cards to premier card customers
BNP Paribas Visa Premier card customers will soon have the option of upgrading to a biometric payment card for an additional fee of €24 (US$29) a year, the French bank has revealed... More