Customers of Emirates NBD bank in the United Arab Emirates can now earn entries to a prize draw for luxury items whenever they make a contactless payment with their credit or debit card, mobile wallet or payments-enabled wearable device... More
Rewards
Google promotes mobile payments in the US with $30 Spring Challenge
Google Pay users in the US can now earn a US$30 reward by completing actions including making NFC tap-to-pay transactions, paying or referring friends, and redeeming cashback offers during a 10-day promotion... More
Patent shows how Apple Pay could automatically select a card based on the user’s location
Apple Pay users could be able to make contactless payments and other transactions with merchants or transit providers without having to manually select the correct payment, rewards or transit card or other digital credential from within their mobile wallet... More
Developers adopt NFC tags to encourage plastic recycling
Consumers may soon be able to collect rewards at smart recycling points and kerbside collections for recycling plastic bottles and other reusable packaging fitted with NFC labels that uniquely identify each item... More
Australian winery picks NFC tags for brand promotion campaign
Consumers purchasing specially marked bottles of wine produced by the Devil’s Corner winery in Tasmania will be able to enter a promotion and win rewards by tapping an NFC chip in the label or scanning a QR code... More
Google Pay to let users in India share their transaction data for personalised offers and rewards
Google Pay users in India will soon be able to choose whether they want to share their transaction history and other activity data with the company in order to receive more personalised offers and rewards... More
National QR payments and rewards system to be launched in Australia
Australia’s Eftpos national debit card system is to launch a QR code-enabled mobile payments and rewards network that will enable “seamless payment experiences across ecommerce, mobile and point of sale”... More
SBI to let merchants accept contactless payments on standard Android NFC phones
Merchants across India will soon be able to accept contactless digital payments on their Android NFC smartphone without needing any additional hardware. State Bank of India (SBI) is making the software-only solution available through a new SBI Merchant app. More
Chinese consumers now make three mobile payments every day
Chinese consumers made an average of three mobile payments a day during 2020, while 98% of the Chinese population consider mobile payments to be their most frequently used transaction method, an increase of five percentage points on last year, a new survey reveals... More
Flipkart lets customers use reward points for in-store payments
Customers of Indian ecommerce giant Flipkart can now use SuperCoin reward points earned by shopping on the platform to make in-store purchases at retail outlets across the country by scanning a QR code at participating merchants... More
Juniper forecasts 2.2bn QR code payment users by 2025
The number of people using QR code payment services globally will rise from 1.5 billion in 2020 to more than 2.2 billion in 2025, representing close to one in three (29%) of all the world’s mobile phone users, Juniper Research predicts... More
Dynamo Kyiv to reward soccer fans with digital tokens
Fans of Ukrainian football team Dynamo Kyiv will soon be able to earn digital tokens that they can store in a mobile wallet and spend in-person at the team’s stadium and online at its digital marketplace... More
Samsung Pay winds down rewards scheme
Samsung Pay users in the USA are no longer able to earn Samsung Rewards points each time they make a purchase using the payments service... More
Italy promotes cashless payments with 10% rebates for shoppers using cards and mobile apps in stores
Consumers in Italy can now receive an automatic 10% refund into their bank account for cashless in-store payments made using a credit, debit or prepaid card or payment app between now and the end of the year — as long as they make at least 10 digital transactions during the period... More
7-Eleven launches mobile wallet that customers can load with cash in stores
Customers in 7-Eleven convenience stores across the USA can now make contactless payments at the checkout using a mobile wallet that the retail giant has added to its 7-Eleven app... More
Japanese airline turns to mobile payments to boost revenues during Covid-19
Frequent flyers with All Nippon Airways (ANA) will soon be able to make in-store purchases and accumulate air miles by using a QR code-enabled mobile payments service that the Japanese airline is to launch “amid shrinking travel demand due to the coronavirus outbreak,” Japan Today reports... More
Stocard rolls out mobile payments service in four more European countries
Leading European mobile loyalty wallet provider Stocard has expanded its Stocard Pay service to users in Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands, enabling them to make in-store NFC payments in addition to using the wallet to access loyalty cards and redeem rewards... More
Huawei Pay goes live in Malaysia
Malaysian consumers with compatible Huawei smartphones can now use Huawei Pay to make NFC mobile payments with an ICBC UnionPay credit card stored in their mobile wallet... More
JR East to offer extra loyalty points to transit card users travelling off-peak
Commuters on JR East train services in the Tokyo metropolitan area who pay for their tickets using a commuter pass stored on their Suica transit card will receive additional JRE loyalty points for travelling outside peak times from March 2021... More
Google Pay drives user engagement with Go India travel game
Google Pay users in India can now earn rewards by taking part in a digital travel game and collecting ‘tickets’ for a virtual journey around the country every time they use the mobile payments service on either their Android or iOS device... More