Apple has reportedly been in acquisition talks with troubled mobile payments startup Clinkle amidst claims that seven of the company’s staff quit their roles last week following frustration with CEO Lucas Duplan... More
Archive for May 2015
Alibaba signs up brands for QR-like dotless visual codes
Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba has launched a platform for brands and product manufacturers that will enable them to place “dotless visual codes” on product packaging so that consumers can scan to check a product’s authenticity and get information, discounts and recommendations based on their preferences... More
Trader Joe’s gears up for Apple Pay
US grocery chain Trader Joe’s is reportedly gearing up to begin accepting Apple Pay NFC payments in its stores... More
Mountain America offers dual biometric log-in for mobile banking
Mountain America Credit Union has announced the beta release of a dual biometric log-in feature that lets its members access their mobile banking app either by scanning their finger or taking a picture of their eye, claiming to be the first to have combined fingerprint and eye-imaging technology in an attempt to make biometrics available to all of its mobile banking users... More
Samsung Wallet to close on June 30th
Samsung is to discontinue its Samsung Wallet service on 30 June 2015 as it gears up to roll out Samsung Pay later in the year... More
Google to launch mobile buy buttons?
Google is expected to add buy buttons to search results pages on mobile devices in the coming weeks that will guide consumers to product pages where they can pick sizes, colours and shipping options before completing a purchase... More
Samsung picks Oberthur for mobile payments in Europe
Samsung has chosen Oberthur Technologies for the deployment of Samsung Pay mobile payments in Europe later this year, utilising the technology provider’s Pearl secure element embedded in Samsung S6 and S6 Edge devices. More
Italian zoo visitors walk on the wilder side with iBeacon network
Visitors to Zoom Torino Biopark in Cumiana, Italy will be able to unlock information and rewards on their smartphones thanks to a network of Bluetooth Low Energy beacons that send location-based messages to their devices... More
India gets PIN-free contactless payments
Contactless users in India can make payments of up to Rs2,000 (US$31) without using a PIN, following the Reserve Bank of India’s relaxation of its requirement for two-factor authentication... More
US mobile payments to hit $487bn
US mobile proximity payments will rise to US$487bn gross dollar volume (GDV) by 2020, up from $7.5bn GDV this year, Aite Group forecasts. “While mobile proximity payments will grow quickly as NFC distribution becomes universal and customers begin to use the platforms,” says author Thad Peterson, “mobile commerce will drive more transaction volume than mobile proximity payments in the next five years.”... More
Global biometrics market to hit $14.9bn by 2024
The global biometrics market will increase from US$2bn in 2015 to $14.9bn by 2024, with cumulative revenue for the 10-year period reaching $67.8bn, market intelligence firm Tractica forecasts... More
UK contactless payments up 150%
The number of contactless transactions in the UK has risen 150% in the last six months, with the average transaction now valued at £7.24, payments processor Worldpay has revealed... More
Walmart to accept Alipay mobile payments in China
Walmart is to begin accepting Alipay mobile payments at 25 stores in Shenzhen, China, and the service is to go live in all of the chain’s 410 stores across 160 Chinese cities by the end of this year... More
Samsung ‘paid $250m for LoopPay’
Samsung paid about US$250m to acquire LoopPay, developer of the magnetic secure transmission (MST) technology that will form a key part of Samsung Pay when it launches later this year, according to Recode... More
Japanese carrier to secure mobile payments with iris scanning phone
Japan’s largest mobile network operator NTT Docomo has unveiled an NFC smartphone that comes equipped with an iris authentication system from Fujitsu that will let owners unlock the device and authenticate mobile payments just by looking at it... More
Canadian carriers MTS and SaskTel launch NFC payments with TD Bank
MTS and SaskTel have become the latest Canadian mobile network operators to launch NFC mobile payment services using EnStream, the joint venture between Bell Mobility, Telus and Rogers Communications put in place to act as a single connection point between the country’s card issuers and carriers... More
American Airlines Center gets NFC tablets for payments on the go
Employees at multi-purpose arena American Airlines Center in Dallas are to be given NFC tablets that will allow them to accept mobile and contactless credit card payments from visitors anywhere in the stadium... More
Orange Cash adds in-store mobile payments in Spain
Orange Spain is to launch a new version of its Orange Cash service allowing users to pay with their smartphone at Visa contactless point-of-sale terminals and make online payments using one-time generated virtual cards... More
Airtel and Verifone to deliver NFC payments in Ghana
Mobile network operator Airtel Ghana has partnered with Verifone Mobile Money to roll out NFC-enabled devices to Airtel merchants that will act as terminals, allowing more than 1.5 million registered Airtel Money users to make payments with their phone... More
Denmark government aims for cashless society
The government in Denmark has proposed doing away with the obligation for retailers in the country to accept payment in cash, in an attempt to replace it with other methods such as plastic cards and mobile payments... More