Singapore’s United Overseas Bank has reported a more than three-fold increase in contactless card transactions in the year to April 2014, with more than 500 contactless purchases now being made each day... More
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1.75bn to use mobile banking
More than 1.75 billion mobile phone users will have used their device for banking purposes by the end of 2019, up from 800 million people this year, according to a new Juniper Research forecast... More
Brits turn to mobile for purchase decision making
Nearly half of all UK consumers with a tablet or smartphone (46%) now use mobile devices as their primary tool for telecoms purchase decision making, 39% for insurance and 33% for retail, according to new research from location ad platform xAd and call measurement technology provider Telmetrics... More
PayPal pays next day
PayPal is piloting Next-Day Settlement (NDS), a new service that cuts the time taken for transfers between a merchant’s PayPal account and their bank account from the usual three or four days to 24 hours... More
China UnionPay to offer QR payments?
China UnionPay is developing a QR code-based mobile payment service that will provide a way to make both online and offline mobile payments, according to Marbridge Consulting... More
French shopping centre uses BLE beacons to help retailers attract customers
Les Terrasses du Port, a new 480-hectare shopping centre in the French city of Marseille, has installed Europe’s largest network of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons, enabling retailers such as Zara and H&M to deliver promotional offers and information straight to shoppers’ smartphones... More
UK city to run NFC, QR and BLE shopper marketing pilot
Proximity commerce specialist Proxama has partnered with the Association of Town and City Management (ATCM) and Norwich Business Improvement District (BID) to run a shopper marketing pilot in the UK city of Norwich... More
New IoT consortium launches
Atmel, Broadcom, Dell, Intel, Samsung and Wind River have formed the Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC), a new industry grouping that aims to improve the interoperability and define the connectivity requirements for the Internet of Things (IoT)... More
Tamagotchi 4U to come with NFC
Japanese toy maker Bandai is to include NFC in the next version of its Tamagotchi electronic pets, enabling owners to tap their device on ‘Touch Spots’ and against other Tamagotchis and smartphones to exchange items and play games... More
Two thirds of UK smartphone owners open to the idea of mobile wallets
Two thirds of UK smartphone owners are open to the idea of using a mobile wallet, according to a survey conducted by Marketing Sciences — but most consumers want to use a mobile wallet to collect loyalty points and offers rather than for making payments... More
British Banking Association reports on UK’s banking ‘revolution’
Mobile and internet banking in the UK is now being used for transactions worth nearly £1bn a day and totalling £6.4bn a week, up from £5.8bn last year, according to an industry-wide report on how mobile technology is changing the banking industry from the British Banking Association and Ernst & Young... More
Diebold and Wincor Nixdorf form ATM security alliance
ATM manufacturers Diebold and Wincor Nixdorf have partnered to found an association aimed at working to improve cash machine security. The ATM Security Association aims to compile information on recognised and potential attack scenarios, and share it with specific industry groups to rapidly deploy and implement counter-measures at a global level... More
Robin raises funds for BLE in the office
Boston startup Robin has closed a US$1.4m seed funding round to expand and develop a solution that uses iBeacons and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to let workers interact with the office space around them... More
Taiwanese banks to set up their own NFC TSM
Taiwan’s Fair Trade Commission has approved a plan to establish a TSM platform that the country’s financial institutions will be able to use to introduce mobile payments services, Want China Times reports... More
Indonesia to get NFC payments
Indonesian mobile network operator Telkomsel is to launch an NFC mobile payment service in October this year, in partnership with a bank, according to Indonesian Business Daily... More
Restaurant inspectors add QR info
New inspection placards that include QR codes are to be issued by the US city of Pasadena’s Public Health Department for display in restaurants and other food outlets... More
Easyjet pilots Bluetooth beacons at three European airports
Low-cost airline easyJet is trialling iBeacon technology at London Luton, London Gatwick and Paris Charles de Gaulle airports... More
Estonia to get Worapay mobile payments
Lithuania-based mobile payments provider Worapay is set to go live in Estonia this month with partner and local businessman Rando Parna, who has acquired a license to operate the technology... More
Smartwatch with iris recognition and NFC seeks funding
Crowdfunding is being sought for an NFC-enabled smartwatch that features iris recognition technology, letting wearers identify themselves and unlock services using their unique biometric data... More
Moven raises $8m series A
Mobile banking, payments and budgeting startup Moven has raised US$8m in a series A funding round and will use the money to invest in new features and tools and to build its international network of partners... More