PARTNER NEWS: Mobile financial solutions firm Mahindra Comviva has released an updated version of Mobiquity Wallet, a digital wallet platform that launched in March 2014 with support for QR codes, Bluetooth, NFC and host card emulation (HCE). More
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Brazilian mobile bank launches with biometric authentication
Brazilian consumers can now sign up to mobile and online only bank Neon by taking a selfie with their mobile phone... More
Masterpass to enable in-store NFC mobile payments
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
Droplet to close down
UK-based mobile payment and rewards platform Droplet is to be discontinued... More
Semble discontinues SIM-based NFC mobile wallet in New Zealand
Semble, the SIM-based NFC mobile wallet launched in New Zealand by two banks, three carriers and payments network Paymark, is to be discontinued, the mobile wallet company has confirmed. Semble says it now aims to “refocus the business to develop and build new services”. More
Seqr adds NFC in Sweden
Swedish consumers can now make NFC mobile payments using Seamless’ Seqr mobile payment platform... More
ING and KBC to combine mobile payments and loyalty in Belgium
ING and Belgian bank KBC are to launch a mobile payment and loyalty platform in Belgium that will combine ING’s Payconiq mobile payment app with loyalty platforms Qustomer and CityLife in a single service. More
Seqr adds four more countries
Swedish mobile payment specialist Seamless has launched its Seqr mobile payment platform in Austria, Ireland, Malta and Luxembourg... More
MTA goes live with Masabi mobile ticketing
Passengers on New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) can now pay for tickets and have them validated on their smartphone... More
Thinfilm to build NFC platform for medical devices
A Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company has partnered with printed electronics specialist Thinfilm to create an NFC OpenSense platform for medical devices... More
Xiaomi and MobiKwik launch recharge and bill payments
Owners of a Xiaomi handset running the MIUI8 operating system can now recharge their phone and make bill payments with “one touch” using mobile payment platform MobiKwik... More
Canadian credit unions go live with Mobile Pay
Canadian credit unions Affinity and Conexus in Saskatchewan, First West in British Columbia and Meridian in Ontario have become the first to launch Mobile Pay, the host card emulation (HCE) mobile payment service developed by trade body the Canadian Credit Union Association... More
Nordic banks sign up to HCE mobile payments with Nets
Customers of banks belonging to Danish banking collective The Bokis Partnership will soon be able to make host card emulation (HCE) based mobile payments via a service that uses an HCE and tokenization platform from digital payment services provider Nets and Carta Worldwide. More
NXP adds more powerful NFC controller and developer kits
PARTNER NEWS: Chip maker NXP has released a high performance NFC controller designed for use in consumer electronic devices as well as developer demo kits that interface with a range of popular prototyping platforms. More
OT works on mobile payments rollout in France
Oberthur Technologies (OT) is working with retail payment operator STET and Cartes Bancaires CB Group (GIE-CB), the regulatory body for the payment card system, to roll out mobile payment services in France... More
ABN Amro takes payments to WhatsApp
Customers of Dutch bank ABN Amro can now send payment requests to others using messaging platform WhatsApp and a new mobile app called Tikkie... More
MintChip launches for in-store and P2P payments in Canada
Canadians can now use the MintChip virtual currency to send and receive money through a P2P mobile app and make payments at participating merchants in Toronto’s Liberty Village neighbourhood by scanning a barcode... More
French vineyard to safeguard its entire output with NFC
PARTNER NEWS: The Geantet-Pansiot vineyard estate in Burgundy, France is to equip all of its wine bottles with an NFC tag to let its customers authenticate the beverage and receive information about the wine directly on their smartphone. More
Alipay parent company seeks expansion overseas
Alipay parent company Ant Financial is seeking to buy a 20% stake in Thai online payment provider Ascend Money and to increase its stake to 30% at a later date... More
LG U+ to launch biometric authentication platform
LG U+ is to release a new service in August that uses biometric authentication for mobile shopping and banking transactions based on the storage of “personal biometric information in universal subscriber identity modules (USIMs),” according to Business Korea... More