Apple unveils promotional campaign to win Chinese consumers to Apple Pay — South China Morning Post — “Consumers using Apple Pay to make payments in designated online and offline merchants in mainland China that display the logo of UnionPay’s QuickPass facility will receive discounts of up to 50% and as much as 50 times the usual amounts of reward points for credit cards.”
Archive for July 2017
Samsung Pay announces partnership to allow users to pay via PayPal
Samsung Pay announces partnership to allow users to pay via PayPal — Samsung — “Access to PayPal will be available for all Samsung Pay users in the United States and will expand to other countries soon. Additionally, through Braintree, a PayPal service, merchants will be able to accept Samsung Pay as a method of payment in-app and online.”
Mastercard and Visa lose share to UnionPay in global cards market
Mastercard and Visa lose share to UnionPay in global cards market — RBR — “The continued rapid expansion of the Chinese cards market has helped UnionPay to increase its share of cards to 43% in 2016, and extend its lead over Visa and Mastercard. UnionPay has been the largest scheme globally for card numbers since 2010 and, by the end of 2016, there were more than six billion UnionPay branded cards in circulation.”
Santander pays 5% cashback when you pay by mobile phone
Santander pays 5% cashback when you pay by mobile phone — Which? — “Santander 123 Lite Current account customers can earn 5% cashback on all purchases using their debit cards via Apple Pay, Android Pay and Samsung Pay. The two-and-a-half month deal runs from 17 July to 30 September, with the bonus paid out by the end of November.”
MobiKwik integrated with Samsung Pay Mini
MobiKwik integrated with Samsung Pay Mini — The Hindu — “The tie-up will enable one-tap payments at more than 1.4m MobiKwik-powered merchants pan-India. Alternatively, users just need to do one swipe and a click to scan and pay immediately at these merchants, improving convenience for them. MobiKwik will also be available soon on Samsung Pay,”
Khushi Baby adds biometric security to NFC health records
Khushi Baby, a service that uses NFC necklaces to track the healthcare given to mothers and babies in India, has added biometric security to its platform to further protect the personal information of patients... More
Apple has just weeks to fix its fingerprint problem, says KeyBanc
Apple has just weeks to fix its fingerprint problem, says KeyBanc — Barron’s — “Apple is still struggling to put a fingerprint sensor under the glass of its next iPhone, says KeyBanc, and it has until August to fix the problem or else ditch fingerprints on the new device or decide to delay substantially its roll out… Not having the fingerprint sensor, he writes, would not be good, as it might effectively shut out the new phone from things like Apple Pay.”
Abu Dhabi launches app to track pupils on journey to school
Abu Dhabi launches app to track pupils on journey to school — Arabian Business — “Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC) and Emirates Transport have launched Hafilaty, an app that enables parents to track their children to and from school… As part of the initiative, Emirates Transport has installed advanced systems, including GPS tracking systems to locate the bus and NFC technology on students’ cards.”
Jet.com is installing Latch access systems in 1,000 NYC apartment buildings for easier deliveries
Jet.com is installing Latch access systems in 1,000 NYC apartment buildings for easier deliveries — TechCrunch — “Residents can use their phone as a key, grant access to guests without walking downstairs and of course get packages delivered safely without being home. Building managers can also use Latch’s system to grant access to trusted delivery providers like USPS at their discretion, but all of these 1,000 units will already be set up to provide access to Jet’s delivery partners.”
Contactless travel card offers automatic repayments for delayed trains
Data collected when a contactless card is used to pay for a train journey is now being used to automatically compensate passengers when their train is delayed by 15 minutes or more, removing the need for travellers to manually file a request for a refund... More
Coca-Cola reveals AI-powered vending machine app
Coca-Cola reveals AI-powered vending machine app — Venturebeat — “The app, which launches in about two weeks in places like US universities and locations around Australia and New Zealand, will allow you to order a Coca-Cola drink for yourself and a friend, then have it available on the vending machine.”
Japan’s Bic Camera to accept bitcoin nationwide
Japan’s Bic Camera to accept bitcoin nationwide — Nikkei Asian Review — “Bic Camera will allow payments in bitcoin at all locations throughout Japan as early as this month, looking to provide more options for foreign and domestic shoppers… The more-than-expected popularity of this option prompted Bic Camera to expand the system to the rest of its locations, the company says.”
Sub-Saharan Africa driving global market for mobile money
Sub-Saharan Africa driving global market for mobile money — GSMA — “The new study points to a decade of growth in mobile money services in the region following the launch of M-Pesa in Kenya in 2007. It notes that there are now seven markets in the region where more than 40% of adults are active mobile money users: Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe.”
PayPal now available on App Store, Apple Music, iTunes and more
PayPal now available on App Store, Apple Music, iTunes and more — PayPal — “PayPal’s availability across Apple’s services further expands our vision of providing customers a variety of ways to easily make mobile purchases, such as asking Siri to make a payment using the PayPal app… Once PayPal has been selected, all future purchases with the customer’s Apple ID will be automatically charged to their PayPal account.”
Researchers fight fakes with quantum fingerprints that can be checked with a smartphone
Researchers from Lancaster University have created an ID technology based on irregularities found in two-dimensional materials such as graphene... More
Viewpost survey reveals 80% of Americans support ‘futuristic’ payment technologies and currencies
Viewpost survey reveals 80% of Americans support ‘futuristic’ payment technologies and currencies — Viewpost — “35% see facial recognition as a key authentication technology for making payments within the next ten years, and 32% of Americans trust facial recognition for securing electronic payments. Retinal scanning and voice control — these advanced biometric methods have gained traction in consumers’ consciousness, with some 31% citing retinal scanning as a viable technology for authenticating payments and 18% seeing themselves using voice control to make payments by 2027.”
Debit cards overtake cash to become number one payment method in the UK
Debit cards overtake cash to become number one payment method in the UK — British Retail Consortium — “For the first time the volume of retail purchases made by card now accounts for more than half of all customer transactions, according to the BRC’s latest annual Payments Survey, released today. This has partly been driven by UK customers increasingly using cards for lower value payments.”
Google gearing up to enter mobile payments In India by integrating Android Pay with UPI
Google gearing up to enter mobile payments In India by integrating Android Pay with UPI — Inc42 — “Google is developing a separate India-focused app, which it will name differently, in integration with a bank. It is expected that Google will launch a UPI-enabled app within the next two-three months for mobile payments. If this happens, it could be a big boost to given that Android is the dominant operating system in India.”
USA Technologies files for proposed public offering
USA Technologies files for proposed public offering — PARTNER NEWS — “USA Technologies Inc (USAT), a premier payment technology service provider of integrated cashless and mobile transactions in the self-service retail market, today filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the US Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed underwritten public offering of its common stock consisting of approximately $34.5 million of shares to be sold by USAT.”
Eftpos Australia completes contactless debit card and mobile payments upgrade
Australia’s Eftpos debit card network has completed an infrastructure upgrade that will enable its partners to roll out new products and services including Eftpos Tap & Pay and Eftpos Mobile payments. The update also includes Australia’s first domestic token service provider, “complete and ready for commercial deployment”. More