Russian mobile network operator MTS has launched MTS Money Wallet, an online payments and money transfer service that incorporates loyalty points, offers and discounts, and is to be expanded to transport and in-store payments via NFC, SMS and USSD technologies later this year... More
IBM is to integrate Visa Token Service into its Watson IoT cognitive technology platform to enable payments to be embedded into “any device connected to the Internet of Things (IoT)”, with all of IBM’s Watson IoT Platform customers gaining access to Visa payment services via IBM’s cloud service — rather than businesses needing to be approached on a one-by-one basis... More
Customers of Isbank in Turkey can now send and receive money using Apple’s iMessage... More
Finnish distiller Northern Lights Spirits (NLS) is to include NFC tags on premium Kalevala Gin bottles, allowing it to “instantly deliver authentication messages, brand stories, promotional offers, product news and other relevant content” to customers... More
PARTNER NEWS: NXP has unveiled a platform designed to enable developers of Internet of Things equipment to “easily build” secure and trusted systems... More
More than 150,000 micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Kenya will be able to accept in-store mobile payments using QR code technology in 2017, using Mastercard’s Masterpass QR platform... More
PARTNER NEWS: Mahindra Comviva has won an Aegis Graham Bell award for TerraPay, an international payment network that offers wholesale remittance services to mobile wallet providers... More
The group of Australian banks arguing for the right to collectively negotiate with Apple over the introduction of Apple Pay in the country have dropped their request to jointly arrange how to “pass-through” additional fees Apple imposes on its mobile payment service, and will now focus solely on gaining access to the NFC functionality within the iPhone... More
Apple Pay boss Jennifer Bailey says she believes Australians will be “happy to switch banks” in order to use Apple Pay, while the group of four Australian banks wanting the ability to collectively negotiate with Apple over the introduction of the mobile payments service risks “being left behind” in the development of digital wallets by doing so... More
Customers of Dutch bank ING can now make a payment request and send money through Apple’s iMessage platform... More
LG will not launch its LG Pay mobile payments platform on the upcoming LG G6 device due to time constraints and the company may be abandoning its plans to launch the service altogether, South Korean publication Newsis reports... More
Samsung is to launch a pared-down version of Samsung Pay which will make the mobile payments service available on all Android handsets... More
US consumers can now place orders from coffee giant Starbucks by speaking into the Starbucks iOS mobile app or to Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa. The move comes as the company reveals that mobile orders made up 7% of all its US transactions in the last quarter, with mobile payments now accounting for 27%. More
Mobile payments accounted for a third of PayPal’s overall payment volume during the fourth quarter of 2016, the company’s CEO Dan Schulman has revealed, with the total volume of mobile payments increasing by 55% over the course of last year. More
Consumers with Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge devices can now log into select websites and mobile apps using their fingerprint and Samsung Pass, the biometric authentication service unveiled by Samsung in August 2016... More
Alibaba’s payment affiliate Ant Financial is “definitely” looking into using blockchain to underpin its mobile payments platform Alipay, CEO Eric Jing has told CNBC, adding that artificial intelligence and blockchain will be “deeply” integrated into Ant Financial’s operations... More
European payment infrastructure provider EBA Clearing has begun testing an instant payment platform unveiled earlier this month by the European Central Bank, that will allow European consumers to make cross-border mobile P2P payments... More
US consumers will soon be able to purchase goods using loyalty points from multiple programs through Verifone Points Redemption, a new service designed for merchants which connects to third party loyalty programs and alerts shoppers when they have enough points available to complete a payment... More
PARTNER NEWS: Retail giant Carrefour is piloting a mobile payments and loyalty service in France, secured with Gemalto’s Mobile Protector platform, that allows customers to validate payments with a PIN code or their fingerprint, receive and redeem coupons and access loyalty programs... More
Honda is conducting the first proof-of-concept demonstration of its in-vehicle payments platform at the Consumer Electronics Show 2017 in Las Vegas... More