The ability to make payments from within Facebook Messenger is on its way, according to screenshots and video footage spotted by Techcrunch... More
Security
How Apple will generate revenues from mobile payments begins to become clear
An innovative biosensor security function built into the Apple Watch and the Touch ID fingerprint sensor in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus will work in combination with NFC and tokenization to provide additional security to Apple Pay transactions, it is now becoming clear — giving Apple the ability to negotiate special deals with card issuers that will generate new revenues for the Cupertino company... More
MasterCard launches MDES token platform for mobile payments
MasterCard has announced US availability of a token platform that enables card issuers to store tokenized versions of their customers’ card details on Apple’s new NFC devices as well as NFC phones and tablets from a range of other manufacturers... More
Visa launches token service to support Apple Pay and more
Visa Token Service, the payment network’s new platform that enables card account numbers to be replaced with digital tokens that ensure the cardholder’s actual card number is never shared with merchants, is now live and will be used to enable Visa cardholders to make use of Apple’s new NFC mobile payments service... More
Transcript: Apple CEO Tim Cook and SVP Eddy Cue introduce Apple Pay mobile payments and NFC
“It’s all about the wallet,” Apple CEO Tim Cook explained during the unveiling of Apple Pay mobile payments and the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch with NFC on 9 September... More
NXP publishes guide to NFC and the Internet of Things
Chip maker NXP has published a 20-page guide to NFC and the Internet of Things (IoT) that is available for readers to download 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
Alipay partners with Huawei to add biometric security to mobile payments
Chinese online payments giant Alipay is working with Huawei to enable users of the phone maker’s new Ascend Mate 7 handset to secure their mobile payments using a fingerprint sensor built into the phone... More
Verizon aims to replace usernames and passwords with QR codes
Verizon Enterprise has introduced Universal ID, a service designed to replace usernames and passwords with a QR code that consumers can scan with their mobile phone to gain access to a website or app... More
Smart Card Alliance offers HCE paper
The Smart Card Alliance has published Host Card Emulation (HCE) 101, a white paper that “takes a deep dive into HCE and NFC opportunities and security considerations”... More
St George adds fingerprint security to mobile banking app
Customers of Australia’s St George Bank will be able to use the Touch ID fingerprint verification technology built into the iPhone 5S to log into mobile banking when iOS8 launches in September... More
EyeVerify raises $6m
EyeVerify has raised US$6m in Series A funding for a service that uses the camera in a mobile phone to secure access to mobile banking and other apps... More
US to get 575m chip cards next year
More than 575million EMV payment cards will have been issued by the end of 2015 by nine leading US card issuers who are members of the Payments Security Task Force (PST), an organisation set up in March 2014 “to drive executive level discussion that will enhance payments system security”... More
Analysts report on Apple/Visa partnership
“We think a partnership between Apple and Visa would make strategic sense and believe an announcement could happen as early as this fall,” a team of Pacific Crest Securities analysts has concluded in a new report that follows reports suggesting that two are in talks on mobile payments... More
US merchant groups call for creation of open tokenization standards
Leading merchant groups in the US have come together to call for the creation of an alternative set of open standards for tokenized payments that would be managed by an independent body such as ISO or ANSI — rather than by the payments industry. More
NXP CEO: NFC secure elements will continue to see strong demand
“We feel very comfortable with the strength of the secure element,” NXP Semiconductors CEO Rick Clemmer has told analysts during the chip maker’s second quarter earnings call... More
CU Wallet signs up 65 credit unions for QR mobile payments
CU Wallet, a mobile payments platform developed for US credit unions and majority owned by its cooperative members, has been adopted by 65 credit unions with a combined total of more than seven million customers, the company reports... More
CrucialTec to secure mobile banking with fingerprints
Korean mobile input technology specialist CrucialTec is developing a fingerprint authentication solution that will replace passwords when consumers access mobile banking services on their smartphones, Korea Herald reports... More
Visa Inc abandons digital wallet ambitions, Visa Europe to continue investing
Visa Inc is replacing its V.me digital wallet service with Visa Checkout, a new payment service that enables consumers in the US, Canada and Australia to pay for goods online, on any device, in “just a few clicks”... More
Two thirds of UK smartphone owners open to the idea of mobile wallets
Two thirds of UK smartphone owners are open to the idea of using a mobile wallet, according to a survey conducted by Marketing Sciences — but most consumers want to use a mobile wallet to collect loyalty points and offers rather than for making payments... More