A total of 39% of US consumers surveyed by Research Now for Inside Secure say they plan to use their smartphone to make an in-store purchase during this holiday season, up from 33% last year. 17% of those who did not make a mobile payment last year say they plan to use a service like Apple Pay, Android Pay or Samsung Pay this year. More
Customers of South Africa’s First National Bank (FNB) can now redeem mobile coupons and vouchers through the bank’s mobile banking app directly at the point of sale... More
Students at Southwestern College in Kansas can now pay for their food and drink and earn loyalty points and rewards using their face, with no need to pull out their wallet or mobile device at the point-of-sale. More
US retailers Kohl’s and Walgreens have become the first to integrate their loyalty programs with Apple Pay, allowing Kohl’s Charge Card and Walgreens’ Balance Reward customers to earn and redeem points using their iPhones... More
MasterCard has extended the capabilities of its tokenization service to enable payments to be made using “virtually any device”, including NFC-enabled clothing, jewellery and vehicle keyfobs. “Products will begin rolling out in 2016 in the US,” the payments network says, “with plans to expand to other markets.” More
A UK startup raising funds on Kickstarter for a modular smartwatch that includes NFC and contactless payment functionality has amassed pledges totalling more than double its US$250,000 target in just two days. More
Bangalore-based Ultracash Technology Labs has launched a mobile payment service that lets consumers make payments at close to 500 merchants in the city using a high frequency sound-based technology... More
UK department store chain House of Fraser has introduced augmented reality (AR) into its iOS mobile app to let shoppers make purchases from videos, 3D product previews, recipes and lookbooks via a Scan to Explore feature... More
Coffee chain Starbucks has expanded its Mobile Order & Pay service to the UK, allowing customers to use its iOS mobile app to pre-order and pay for their food and drinks in more than 150 stores across London... More
PayPal is to introduce its PayPal Here contactless card reader in the US on September 30, following its launch in the UK in August 2015... More
Shenzhen-based wearable device maker FiiSmart has launched a campaign on ecommerce giant Alibaba’s Taobao Crowdfunding website for a smartwatch that will support Ant Financial’s mobile payment platform Alipay and allow its wearers to make payments by generating a QR-code that can then be scanned at the point-of-sale... More
Warsaw-based start-up uBirds has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for a leather strap that can be fitted onto any standard watch to add a range of smartwatch-like capabilities... More
Coffee chain Starbucks is to make its Mobile Order & Pay service available across the US so customers nationwide can place and pay for orders in advance using their iOS and Android devices... More
Chase has introduced Android and iOS apps for Chase Freedom cardholders that allow them to redeem cashback rewards at the register on their mobile phone... More
Credit card processor North American Bancard has introduced a new version of its PayAnywhere mobile credit card reader, which accepts Apple Pay, contactless NFC payments and magnetic stripe credit cards... More
Connected device maker Coin has released a new version of its electronic magnetic stripe card that is EMV-ready and incorporates NFC, allowing users to store credit and debit cards and make both contactless and swipe payment transactions for in-store purchases... More
Average transaction amounts on iOS devices (US$124.47) were almost double those made on Android ($65.22) in 2014, research from Kount reveals... More
Hong Kong mobile network operator SmarTone has unveiled Kissco, an end-to-end mobile marketing platform incorporating Kiss Pay, a mobile payments service based on NFC and ultrasound technology, a Kiss Dollars loyalty program and Kiss Beacons to allow retailers to send out offers and promotions directly to customers’ smartphones from their stores... More
US retail giant Target has begun testing Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons in 50 stores nationwide to send deals and recommendations on nearby products directly to a shopper’s smartphone running the retailer’s iOS mobile app... More
Thousands of visitors at last weekend’s Zona Picnic Club festival in the Colombian capital Bogota have become the first to use a mobile payment service developed by payment processor Paymentez and MasterCard to pay for food and drink at stalls throughout the event... More