Google Wallet is now available in Argentina, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Montenegro, bringing the total number of countries where the digital wallet is available to 66. More
Digital wallet
Houzz lets home professionals accept contactless payments on standard iPhones
Building and design platform Houzz has added support for Apple’s Tap to Pay softPOS solution to its app, enabling residential contractors and design professionals linked to its service in the US to accept contactless payments from clients on their iPhones... More
Qatar Central Bank rolls out interoperable national mobile payments system
Qatar Central Bank (QCB) has launched an interoperable national mobile payments system that enables Qatari residents and visitors to register and create digital wallets, complete instant money transfers and make in-store QR code payments with their mobile device... More
European Payments Initiative to pilot digital wallet for instant P2P payments in Germany and France
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
Apple Pay launch drives surge in Hyundai Card uptake in Korea
The number of new Hyundai Card users in South Korea rose by 75% from 116,000 in February to 203,000 in March following the launch of Apple Pay in the country on 21 March... More
Apple rolls out support for contactless payments acceptance on iPhones to merchants in Taiwan
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
US employee rewards programme trials online virtual prepaid card provisioning
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
India and Nepal to sign cross-border mobile payments agreement
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
European banks call for rethink on incorporating payments into EU digital identity wallet proposals
The European Credit Sector Associations (ECSAs) are calling on the European Union to re-examine clauses in legislation on the proposed European Digital Identity Wallet that appear to imply that “widely used cards and payment specifications” will have to accept the wallet for strong customer authentication (SCA) for payments “on a mandatory basis”... More
Number of digital payment cards issued globally to top 1.3bn by 2027
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
New South Wales introduces digital health cards
Residents of New South Wales in Australia can now add a QR code-enabled digital version of their Medicare national healthcare card to the Australian federal government’s myGov app on their smartphone... More
Apple Pay goes live in South Korea
Apple Pay has launched in South Korea with support for Mastercard, Visa and local debit and credit cards issued by Hyundai Card... More
NJ Transit adds cash top-ups to mobile ticketing app
Passengers using NJ Transit services across the US state of New Jersey who do not have a bank account or a debit or credit card can now use cash to fund the purchase of digital tickets and passes for travel on bus, train or light rail services on their smartphone... More
Indian rapid transit system to trial digital rupee for contactless parking payments
Passengers using rapid transit services operated by Kochi Metro in the Indian state of Kerala will soon be able to make contactless parking payments with the country’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) as part of a digital rupee pilot programme launched by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)... More
US Department of Agriculture to put state benefits on mobile phones in five states
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is to enable citizens entitled to financial support under its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri and Oklahoma to receive benefits and make NFC or QR code payments for eligible purchases on their mobile device... More
Central bank enables rollout of contactless mobile payments in Egypt
The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) has issued regulations governing payment card tokenization on mobile apps that enable banks and payment service providers to allow customers to make contactless payments with digital cards stored in mobile wallets including Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay... More
Google Wallet goes live in Costa Rica
Google Wallet has launched in Costa Rica, enabling users to store and use their credit and debit cards, boarding passes, tickets and other digital credentials on their Android NFC smartphone, Wear OS smartwatch or Fitbit device... More
More than 4bn digital identity apps to be in use by 2027
The number of active digital identity apps in use globally will exceed 4.1bn by 2027, up by nearly 2bn from a total of 2.3bn in 2023, according to a forecast by Juniper Research... More
OpenWallet Foundation announces 37 backers for open source digital wallet project
The Linux Foundation Europe’s initiative to build an open source engine that will support the development of interoperable digital wallets across use cases including digital identity, credential authentication and payments has gone live with the backing of 37 private, nonprofit, academic and government entities... More
Samsung and Naver partner on mobile payments in Korea as Apple Pay prepares to go live
Samsung and Naver have formed a strategic partnership designed to maintain the two companies’ mobile payments market leadership in South Korea ahead of Apple’s expected launch of Apple Pay in the country in the coming months... More