KFC is letting customers use their phones to pay for meals through mobile network operator Airtel’s mobile money platform in five of the fast-food chain’s stores in Accra, Ghana... More
KFC serves up mobile payments in Ghana
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Pizza Hut could let customers order and pay for pizza from their cars
Pizza Hut is testing a proof-of-concept “connected car” system that would let its customers order and pay for pizza from their vehicle before identifying themselves when arriving at the restaurant through Bluetooth beacons placed in designated parking bays... More
Diageo unveils smart whisky bottle with ‘game-changing’ NFC tags
“Smart bottles” that know when they have been opened and then deliver relevant, personalised messages directly to a consumer’s smartphone will be showcased by printed electronics specialist Thinfilm at Mobile World Congress 2015... More
McDonald’s lets customers pay with love
McDonald’s restaurants across the US are adding a new payment method for a two-week promotion, letting customers pay for their orders with “random acts of loving” such as giving out high fives and hugs, taking selfies, calling family members, dancing and blowing kisses... More
Chocolate shop sweet talks tourists with Bluetooth beacons
The largest producer of confectionery in Latvia has installed Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons in its stores in the capital Riga to send information directly to a customer’s smartphone in the default language of their device... More
Apple Pay set to go live in Canada?
Apple Pay could be available in Canada within the next two months and the company is already in talks with partners to launch the mobile payment service in the country, 9to5mac reports... More
Brazilian online fashion retailer installs Bluetooth Fashion Spots
Dafiti, Latin America’s largest online fashion retailer, is to place Bluetooth beacons in restaurants, bars and newsstands in the Brazilian city of São Paulo to send out promotional messages to shoppers’ smartphones... More
Office Depot delivers marketing messages to shoppers via Shazam audio watermarks
Office Depot has become the first retail chain to roll out Shazam In-Store, a mobile marketing platform that makes use of the Shazam music discovery app, inaudible digital watermarks, a merchant’s overhead music system and a location-based platform developed by Mood Media to send promotional messages to shoppers’ mobile phones... More
Swirl reports positive consumer feedback on in-store beacon offers
Six in ten (60%) shoppers who receive a beacon-triggered message while shopping in a store open and engage with the content and 30% redeem beacon-triggered offers at the point of sale, analysis by Bluetooth beacon offers platform Swirl has found... More
Samsung launches Proximity mobile marketing platform
Samsung has unveiled Proximity, a location-based marketing platform that uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons and works in a similar way to Apple’s iBeacon system — but without the need for consumers to be persuaded to download a marketer’s own app to access the service... More
Macy’s unveils mobile payments and customer marketing plans
Macy’s Inc, owner of the Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s department store chains, has unveiled plans to implement a range of new technologies designed to provide an omnichannel shopping service to its customers... More
Pepsi NFC case study now available
A case study that details an NFC-based shopper marketing service tested by soft drinks giant Pepsi is now available to download free of charge from the NFC World+ Knowledge Centre... More
Retailer-owned payments venture MCX unveils CurrentC brand
Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), the mobile payments venture co-owned by US retail chains with collective revenues of more than US$1 trillion annually, has announced that its payments, loyalty and offers platform is to be called CurrentC — and provided the first details of how the service will work when it rolls out to 110,000 merchant locations across the US in 2015... More
Levi’s Stadium adds BLE beacons
The Levi’s Stadium in San Francisco has installed 1,700 Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons that can be used “to give people pinpoint directions to their seats as well as to any other place in the stadium,” Time reports... More
Nestle runs NFC marketing campaign in 480 Woolworth stores across Australia
Shelf banners equipped with NFC tags have been placed in Woolworths supermarkets across Australia to promote food giant Nestle’s new Oats and Strawberries breakfast cereal... More
Interest in mobile payments grows
Some 53% of consumers globally report they have either used or are interested in redeeming offers and coupons with their phones, while 44% have used or are interested using their mobile device to pay for things in stores and restaurants, according to new research from Ovum... More
Jamba Juice gives away 1m NFC smoothies
One million free juices and smoothies have been given out free of charge by Jamba Juice to Isis NFC mobile wallet users since the ‘Million Free Juice or Smoothie Giveaway’ promotion launched in October 2013... More
DMA warns on push messaging
One in three UK smartphone or tablet owners have never enabled push notifications on their connected devices and 78% of those who have enabled it would immediately delete the app or disable the notification if they were unhappy with the push notifications they receive, a DMA UK survey has found... More
China UnionPay to offer QR payments?
China UnionPay is developing a QR code-based mobile payment service that will provide a way to make both online and offline mobile payments, according to Marbridge Consulting... More
French shopping centre uses BLE beacons to help retailers attract customers
Les Terrasses du Port, a new 480-hectare shopping centre in the French city of Marseille, has installed Europe’s largest network of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons, enabling retailers such as Zara and H&M to deliver promotional offers and information straight to shoppers’ smartphones... More