More than one in five card payments are now made using contactless cards, The UK Cards Association says, adding it is “excited” by the possibilities the technology brings for making payments to transport operators and charities... More
Pan-African banking group Ecobank has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Visa to roll out the mVisa QR code-based mobile payment service in 33 African markets by the end of 2016... More
Mastercard has added blockchain APIs to its developer site to “facilitate new commerce opportunities for the digital transfer of value”, following Visa’s announcement last month it aims to pilot its B2B Connect system next year after working with blockchain developer Chain... More
Apple has added nine more financial institutions in Russia which support Apple Pay, AppleInsider reports... More
Mastercard has launched a pilot program with the American Red Cross to use Mastercard Send to distribute funds to families in Indonesia via their mobile phones to buy water and other items during the drought season... More
A Polish hospital is using isothermal boxes fitted with NFC data loggers provided by French-Polish startup firm Blulog to measure and record the temperature of vital drugs as they are transported between laboratories and medical staff.... More
PARTNER NEWS: More than two thirds of smartphone owners use mobile banking apps, while nearly 80% consider security and reliability the most important attributes of a paid app, says a survey by Gemalto which is now available to download from the NFC World Knowledge Centre... More
Apple has unveiled a new version of its MacBook Pro, including Touch ID to allow owners to make secure payments with Apple Pay from their laptop, as well as unlocking the machine and switching user accounts... More
Nine out of 10 US, European and Canadian commercial banks are exploring the use of blockchain technology for payments, according to a survey of 32 top banking professionals by Accenture... More
The number of mobile payments made in China have grown 10% year on year since 2013, according to the People’s Bank of China (PBoC)... More
Canadian payments start-up NanoPay has completed a US$10m Series A funding round... More
Some 7m contactless payments were made at festivals this year using Hungarian company Festipay’s cashless payment service, an increase of a third on the previous year... More
More than a quarter (26%) of cardholders in Singapore now use a mobile digital wallet, with Apple Pay the most popular ahead of Android Pay and then Samsung Pay, Singapore Business Review reports... More
India’s Yes Bank is to integrate ToneTag’s sound-based contactless payments system into its Yes Pay mobile wallet, The Economic Times reports... More
Iris scanning technology has overtaken fingerprinting as the biometric security measure most UK consumers would consider using, with more than a third saying they would be more likely to use a bank that offers biometric security, a survey from software provider Intelligent Environments has found... More
LG Electronics is working on an alternative to Samsung’s proprietary Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) technology for mobile payments, Android Authority reports... More
Samsung Pay could be launched in Canada “from the first week of November 2016”, Android Central reports... More
PARTNER NEWS: The US$47bn acquisition of NFC pioneer NXP by mobile chip giant Qualcomm will create the “leader of secure connected devices into the next decade” and address the emerging trends of internet of things (IoT), mobile transactions, payment cards, transit, and secure identification... More
The global smart packaging market is expected to reach US$26.7bn by 2024, according to a new report from market research firm Grand View Research... More
Alleged leaked images of Apple’s new MacBook Pro show it will come with an OLED touch panel to support Touch ID, MacRumours reports... More