An Australian parliamentary committee has held a public hearing at which it heard evidence from representatives of leading Australian banks, payment services providers and other financial bodies on regulatory issues including whether companies such as Apple should be mandated to allow third-party payment apps access to a smartphone’s NFC chip... More
Pix, Brazil’s instant payment scheme, has gone live in a “restricted operation phase” prior to full implementation later this month, the Banco Central do Brasil (BCB) has revealed... More
PayPal says it has now fixed an issue with its Google Pay integration that saw multiple users reporting that unauthorized transactions were appearing in their PayPal history, ZDNet reports... More
Victorians to trial Android-based public transport payment — ZDNet — “Mobile Myki allows passengers to buy a Myki, top up, and touch on and off using their Android smartphone. Passengers will be able to buy full fare, concession, child, and senior mobile Mykis using both Myki money and Myki pass. Auto top-up will also be available.”
Big bank-backed Beem It launches Aussie payments app — ZDNet — “The Commonwealth Bank, NAB, and Westpac joined forces to create Beem It, allowing the real-time transfer of funds… The app enables sending and receiving money, with an interface reminiscent of a social media app… ‘It’s using Eftpos, and Visa debit card payment rails,’ Beem It chief product and development officer Deepesh Banerji said.”
23.4 million US consumers aged 14 and over will use Starbucks’ mobile app to make a purchase at the point of sale at least once every six months this year, research from eMarketer has found... More
Biometrics centrepiece of new Visa security roadmap — ZDNet — “The financial services giant has launched its 2020 and beyond roadmap first in Australia, focusing initially on biometrics for payment authorisation, ‘3-D Secure’ fraud detection, and pushing the use of tokenisation.”
Macquarie to give customers data control with new open banking platform — ZDNet — “Information the new platform can share includes personal banking data such as a customer’s transactions and home loan balances, as well as their business and wealth information. It can be plugged into third-party providers like budgeting apps and accounting software, not just competing financial services providers; however, the third-party provider must meet Macquarie’s open platform standards and security criteria before it will turn over the data.”
Facial recognition technology to replace passports at Australian airports — ZDNet — “New technology will be rolled out at Australian airports that will eventually see the end of ‘known passengers’ producing their passports when arriving in the country. Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Peter Dutton said on Wednesday the new AU$22.5 million, three-year contract will initially see 105 new smartgates rolled out that will enable passengers to be processed using facial recognition.”
Qualcomm and Vivo show off under-display fingerprint tech — ZDNet — “The US chip giant said the new solution, Qualcomm Fingerprint Sensors, can be integrated underneath Oled displays and dunked in water. It also said the function works under metal and glass… Apple’s next iPhone is also rumoured to have the fingerprint sensor under the display.”
American Express is gearing up to support the launch of Samsung Pay in Australia “very soon”, American Express Australia’s director of digital commerce Rob Bourne has revealed... More
Samsung Pay users in South Korea will soon be able to both deposit and withdraw money from the ATMs of Woori Bank, Shinhan Bank, KB Kookmin Bank, Industrial Bank of Korea and NH Nonghyup Bank... More
Samsung has discussed the possibility of rolling out Samsung Pay to non-Samsung smartphones, Injong Rhee, executive VP and head of enterprise at Samsung’s mobile business, has told ZDNet... More
Commonwealth Bank has added a loyalty feature to its mobile banking app that also offers HCE payments, allowing users to store loyalty cards and redeem them at the checkout with their NFC phone or by scanning the loyalty card barcode... More
Australia’s transit authority for New South Wales is seeking partners in the IT industry to develop an Android NFC phone app that Transport for NSW officers could use to interact with the authority’s contactless Opal transit cards... More
“We would prefer to start using the chip that comes with the phone,” says CommBank’s head of online banking, but “currently the NFC chip (the secure element) in Android NFC-enabled phones is not available to us.” More
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) will release an Android version of its Kaching mobile payments service in the next six weeks, according to ZDNet Australia... More
Commonwealth Bank of Australia plans to introduce a mass-market NFC service based on microSD technology “within three months”, ZDNet Australia reports:... More
Bruce Mansfield, managing director of debit card payments system Eftpos Payments Australia (ePal), has called on payments providers and mobile network operators to form an impartial NFC industry council, ZDNet Australia reports... More
“At this stage, we will not be progressing with microSD as a contactless payment technology platform,” says the Australian banking giant. More