In depth: The fight for dominance in China’s mobile payment market — Caixin Global — “Under the plan, by the end of 2021 all merchants will be able to use one universal barcode to facilitate transactions through different payment service providers, including banks, Alibaba’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat Pay. Currently, payment providers issue different barcodes that can be used only on their own services.”
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Amazon to make its cashierless Go technology available to other merchants?
Amazon is in talks to bring its cashierless Go technology to airports and movie theaters — CNBC — “Amazon is in talks to bring the cashierless technology that runs its Go stores to other retailers like airport shops and movie theatres, according to people familiar with the matter… The idea is to start installing the technology working for customers in the first quarter of 2020 and have hundreds of these stores working by the end of 2020, two of the people said. One person said Amazon hopes to have the upgrade process take just two weeks.”
Payments networks to drop support for Facebook’s Libra digital currency?
Visa, Mastercard, others reconsider involvement in Facebook’s Libra network — The Wall Street Journal — “Visa Inc, Mastercard Inc and other financial partners that signed on to help build and maintain the Libra payments network are reconsidering their involvement following a backlash from US and European government officials, according to people familiar with the matter.”
Mexico switches on national NFC and QR instant mobile payments platform
Mexico’s Cobro Digital national mobile payments platform — known as CoDi — is now live across the country, enabling consumers to make NFC and QR payments via their mobile banking app and letting merchants receive funds instantly with no commission charges to pay... More
Japanese government offers discounts to consumers making cashless payments with cards and mobile phones
Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has launched a major initiative designed to persuade consumers to move away from paying in cash, by providing a rebate whenever they use a card or mobile phone to make a purchase at any of 500,000 merchants across the country... More
NXP picks Cilab’s NFC tester to support customers developing EMV 3.0 POS terminals
PARTNER NEWS: Cilab’s new ci230 high-speed testing suite is “a tool that has been missing for years,” Renke Bienert, senior principal engineer at NXP’s worldwide customer application and support team in Hamburg, has told NFC World... More
PSB pilots contactless payments acceptance on NFC phones
Russia’s PSB bank has begun the country’s first pilot of dongle-free contactless payments acceptance on standard Android NFC devices. The new SoftPOS service “allows you to turn any NFC phone running Android 7.0 (and above) into a fully fledged POS terminal,” the bank says. More
Banco Proamerica lets merchants accept contactless payments on NFC phones
Banco Proamerica de Costa Rica has become the first bank in Latin America to let merchants accept contactless payments directly on an Android NFC smartphone, without the need for a separate card acceptance dongle... More
New York Mets pilot biometric payments kiosk
New York Mets fans attending games at the team’s Citi Field home field can now purchase snacks and beverages at a self-checkout kiosk that uses a biometrics-based identity verification system to process payments — and check that buyers of alcoholic drinks are of legal drinking age... More
Ant Financial reports 1.2bn mobile wallet users
Alipay and its local e-wallet partners now collectively serve 1.2 billion users globally, Ant Financial has revealed, up 20% since the end of December 2018 and 260% over the past three years... More
Paris goes live with NFC transit ticketing
Public transportation users in Paris can now buy and store transit tickets and passes on Samsung and Orange NFC phones — and can use any Android phone to buy a ticket and then upload it to their contactless travel card via NFC... More
China delays launch of digital currency
China has ‘no timetable’ for the launch of its digital currency, the governor of the country’s central bank has revealed... More
Capital Metro adds Apple Pay and Google Pay to mobile ticketing app
CapMetro releases new version of its app — Capital Metro — “Earlier this week, Capital Metro rolled out a new, more intuitive version of the CapMetro app. The highly rated app allows customers to pay for their tickets on the go, stay up to date on where their bus is, and map out their entire itinerary. New features include: Easy fare/pass purchasing; Convenient Apple Pay and Google Pay; Quicker pass access; Faster real-time tracking; More robust trip planner.”
TravelMaster lets iPhone users update their travel cards via NFC
Public transportation users in South Yorkshire can now purchase bus, tram and train tickets online and then transfer their ticket onto their smart travel card using the NFC contactless card writing capabilities that Apple has made available in iOS13... More
Google Pay reports 67m users in India
“In the last 12 months alone, we’ve grown more than three times to 67 million monthly active users, driving transactions worth over US$110bn on an annualised basis, with hundreds of thousands of offline and online merchants,” Caesar Sengupta, vice president of Google’s next billion users initiative, has revealed... More
Transport for NSW completes rollout of open loop contactless ticketing
Public transportation users in Sydney, Australia, are now able to use contactless bank cards, NFC phones or wearable devices to pay for travel across the entire Transport for New South Wales network, including bus services... More
Atac brings contactless transit ticketing to Rome
Passengers using the subway and local trains in the Italian capital city of Rome can now use their contactless bank card to pay for the journeys they make each day — and can also opt to use their card as a replacement for their monthly travel pass... More
Revolut lets customers pre-authenticate their contactless card as they approach the SCA transaction limit
UK-based neobank Revolut has implemented a Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) system that lets customers use their mobile banking app to authenticate their contactless card as they get close to reaching the new contactless transaction limit, avoiding the risk of having their card declined when they next attempt to make an in-store purchase... More
Accenture issues $280bn payments revenue warning to banks
Banks are at risk of losing up to 15% of global payments revenue, valued at US$280bn, due to “the growth of digital payments and competition from non-banks”, Accenture predicts — but they also have the opportunity to capture US$500bn in new payments-related revenues “if they adopt innovative business models”... More
Monzo to use app notifications to address Strong Customer Authentication communications issues
UK-based neobank Monzo is to use app notifications to provide customers who have a contactless card transaction declined due to new Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) requirements with the information needed for them to successfully complete their transaction... More