Archive for January 2018

93 news stories

What's New in Payments

Apple to let iPhone X owners use Face ID to approve kids’ purchases

By Sarah Clark • • Updated • nfcw.com

iPhone X owners will soon be able to use Face ID to approve family purchases — The Verge — “In iOS 11.3, purchase approvals on a parent’s device can be done through Face ID, after a one-time request to enter their password. Previously, iPhone X owners found the Ask to Buy iOS feature that allows parents to control what children buy with their phone didn’t work with Face ID. Parents had to enter their passwords manually for every purchase, to the chagrin of many customers.”

What's New in Payments

Amazon tests its own QR codes

By Sarah Clark • • Updated • nfcw.com

Amazon is experimenting with its own QR code style ‘SmileCodes’ — Techcrunch — “Amazon has apparently been testing these codes in pop-up shops and Amazon Lockers in Europe for a few weeks now, but the company says these codes will make their US debut in a few different magazines (Cosmopolitan and Seventeen) come February… It’s probably safe to assume we’ll eventually see Amazon tinker with putting these codes on another massively common canvas: its own boxes.”

NFC World

Mobile payments drive 60% growth in demand for NFC phones in Russia

By Sarah Clark • • Updated • nfcw.com

In Russia, booming sales of smartphones that support contactless payments — Vedomosti (translation) — “Demand for them is being driven by the emergence of payment systems from Apple, Samsung and Google. Sales of smartphones that support contactless payments using NFC technology (near field communication), in 2017 compared to 2016, grew by 60% in Russia… Over the past year in Russia, about 8.3m such devices were sold.”

What's New in Payments

Huawei Pay targets Eastern European launches

By Sarah Clark • • Updated • nfcw.com

UnionPay International and Huawei sign global cooperation agreement — UnionPay International — “Next, UnionPay International and Huawei plan to launch Huawei Pay in more markets along the Belt and Road, especially in the Eastern Europe… Huawei Pay now supports the bank cards issued by 66 issuers and is available with 20 terminal devices including mobile phones and watches… In 2017, the transaction volume via Huawei Pay exceeded RMB4bn (US$632m).”

What's New in Payments

Survey finds Samsung Pay influences repeat purchases of Samsung phones in Spain

By Sarah Clark • • Updated • nfcw.com

Samsung Pay reaches 100m euros in transactions since its launch in Spain — Samsung Spain (translation) — “70% of respondents say that one of the reasons to buy a Samsung smartphone is to continue enjoying this service… The same study found that the use of mobile payment has increased notably in 2017, with 19% of users compared to 5% registered in 2016…. The convenience and simplicity offered by Samsung Pay are key factors for 75% of the respondents who gave the service a high satisfaction rating.”

Consumers call for biometric logins to financial services apps

By Mike Clark • • Updated • nfcw.com

IBM Future of Identity study: Millennials poised to disrupt authentication landscape — IBM — “Security was vastly ranked as the top priority for banking, investing, and budgeting apps — for these categories on average 70% selected security as the top priority, with 16% selecting privacy, and 14% selecting convenience… 44% ranked fingerprint biometrics as one of the most secure methods of authentication; passwords and PINs were seen as less secure (27% and 12% respectively).”

Canada to test blockchain and biometric identity concept that lets travellers control their own ID

By Sarah Clark • • Updated • nfcw.com

Canada to test advancements in biometrics and blockchain to welcome international travellers — World Economic Forum — “The Known Traveller concept is founded on the principle that an individual traveller has control over the use of their own identity and its components. Due to this decentralization of control over the components of their identity, a traveller can push proof of their identity information — secured by distributed ledger technology and cryptography — to governmental and private-sector entities throughout their journey.”

Samsung patents blood flow biometric for smartphones and wearables

By Sarah Clark • • Updated • nfcw.com

Samsung’s patent shows authenticating users by measuring their blood flow patterns — SamMobile — “The patent describes a method to identify users based on blood flow patterns in their fingers or wrists using sensors in smartphones and smartwatches… According to the patent application, it is possible to authenticate users based on their blood flow patterns as ‘the arterial conduction paths of different users are almost never identical’.”

What's New in Payments

Softbank to launch new global digital payments system?

By Sarah Clark • • nfcw.com

Softbank plots digital payments raid with plans for Paypal rival — City AM — “Japanese technology giant Softbank is planning to create a global digital payments system that could rival giants such as PayPal, according to reports. The tech firm will lead a consortium backed by some of the world’s biggest banks… Under the plan, Softbank could acquire a large financial software business as a springboard to rolling out the new system.”

What's New in Payments

US consumers sent $75bn in Zelle P2P payments in 2017

By Sarah Clark • • Updated • nfcw.com

Zelle moves record $75bn in 2017 — Zelle — “In 2017, the US$75bn moved on Zelle, was an increase of 36% year-over-year (YoY) from 2016’s totals of $55bn… The Zelle network processed more than 247m payments in 2017, an increase of more than 45% YoY on the 170m transactions processed in 2016… More than 60 financial institutions are now part of the Zelle network.”

What's New in Payments

Samsung Pay goes live in Mexico

By Sarah Clark • • Updated • nfcw.com

Samsung Pay now available in Mexico — Samsung — “To bring this service to Mexico, Samsung strategically partnered with some of the country’s leading financial partners, including payment providers (American Express, MasterCard and Visa); banks (Banorte, Banregio, Citibanamex, HSBC and Santander); and banking acquirers, services and tools such as Clip and iZettle… Samsung Pay’s entry into the Mexican market marks the second Latin American country to receive the service and the 20th market worldwide.”

What's New in Payments

Survey finds sales uplift in stores with mobile POS devices

By Sarah Clark • • Updated • nfcw.com

In-store mobile could generate a 146% revenue boost in 2018 — Retail TouchPoints — “Retailers that are deploying in-store mobile POS saw a 24% average increase in sales in 2017 over retailers who don’t implement mobility in-store… Only 34% of retailers have deployed mobile POS, while 42% have armed their employees with mobile devices without a POS platform.”

Researchers demo continuous user authentication system for smartphones

By Mike Clark • • Updated • nfcw.com

Russian experts submit ‘impenetrable’ smartphone protection system — Phys.org — “The advantage of the new method by the specialists from MEPhI is continuous protection from outside interference without any additional action by the user… Each person has a unique and inimitable style of handling the phone, and the system is based on identifying these unique characteristics.”

Samsung to include iris scanning and face recognition combo in Galaxy S9?

By Sarah Clark • • Updated • nfcw.com

Galaxy S9 may feature ‘Intelligent Scan’, a combination of iris scanning and facial recognition — Android Police — “After some digging around in Samsung’s settings app, a developer and AP reader reached out to us about his discovery of something called ‘Intelligent Scan’… It sounds like Intelligent Scan will combine the sometimes-limited information the iris scanner and your front camera can each extract to piece together a fuller picture of whoever is trying to unlock the phone.”

What's New in Payments

Starbucks CEO sets sights on blockchain payments

By Sarah Clark • • Updated • nfcw.com

Starbucks’ Schultz: Blockchain and digital currencies are bringing us into a new age — Yahoo Finance — “I believe that we are heading into a new age, in which blockchain technology is going to provide a significant level of a digital currency that is going to have a consumer application… We think we have something to offer the companies that are chasing this because we are in a position to create the trusted legitimate place in which this could be accepted and possibly take advantage of the mobile payment digital platform that we have created.”

What's New in Payments

China’s central bank sets out digital currency plans

By Sarah Clark • • Updated • nfcw.com

PBOC official pushes for centralized state digital currency — Coindesk — “Unlike most cryptocurrencies, the CBDC [Central Bank Digital Currency] might not operate via a peer-to-peer mechanism, which brings the key features of anonymity and untraceability… Transactions using CBDC will be visible to the central bank, which would function as a third party to bring oversight on potential money laundering and illegal financing.”

What's New in Payments

Huawei and UnionPay to expand Huawei Pay to Russia

By Sarah Clark • • Updated • nfcw.com

China’s Huawei Pay debuts in Russia, as first port of call in global push — South China Morning Post — “It is a win-win cooperation between two Chinese companies as we join hands to increase the influence that China wields in the global mobile payment businesses,” said Wang Lixin, a vice-president of UnionPay International… In Russia, UnionPay has 400,000 point-of-sale terminals that can accept the Quickpass payment modes including Huawei Pay.”

What's New in Payments

UnionPay: NFC mobile payment volumes are ‘growing quickly’ in China

By Sarah Clark • • Updated • nfcw.com

Apple Pay growing fast but still bit player in China: UnionPay — Caixin — “Two years after their launch in China, a group of third-party mobile payment services led by global giant Apple Inc make up only a small fraction of contactless payments in the country, but the number is growing quickly… About 20% of UnionPay’s 94tn yuan (US$14.2tn) in annual transaction volume now comes from near field communication (NFC) technology payments.”

What's New in Payments

Stripe: Bitcoin is now too slow and too expensive to be viable for payments

By Mike Clark • • Updated • nfcw.com

Ending Bitcoin support — Stripe — “Transaction confirmation times have risen substantially; this, in turn, has led to an increase in the failure rate of transactions denominated in fiat currencies. (By the time the transaction is confirmed, fluctuations in Bitcoin price mean that it’s for the “wrong” amount.) Furthermore, fees have risen a great deal. For a regular Bitcoin transaction, a fee of tens of US dollars is common, making Bitcoin transactions about as expensive as bank wires.”