Singapore’s Land Transport Authority (LTA) has issued a tender inviting suppliers to design a hands-free ticketing solution that will enable commuters to access trains and buses without needing to physically tap their card or mobile phone... More
Amazon is using the cashierless store technology that powers its Amazon Go convenience stores to provide a checkout-free experience in a full-size grocery store for the first time... More
Customers of a US carrier have used a mobile payment app to bill purchases made at a merchant in Taiwan to their mobile phone account, a consortium of companies developing a blockchain-based carrier billing system has announced... More
Brazil’s central bank will turn on a national instant payments network in November that will allow consumers to make payments and transfers “in a few seconds, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, including between accounts of different institutions” using QR codes, NFC, their mobile phone number, email address or taxpayer ID... More
The European Commission is planning to create an integrated EU payments system that will “facilitate the use of national payment services across Europe and reduce the dependency from international card operators such as Visa or Mastercard,” an EU official has told Euractiv... More
Google has included Quick Access Wallet, a new feature that lets users quickly access details of all their stored payment cards from their lock screen, in the Android 11 Developer Preview... More
Sweden’s central bank The Riksbank has begun testing a digital currency designed to enable consumers to store an electronic version of the Swedish krona in a digital wallet and make payments, deposits and withdrawals using a mobile app... More
Chevron has added support for PayPal’s Venmo P2P payments service to its Chevron and Texaco mobile apps, making it possible for drivers to share or split their fuel purchases with passengers... More
Domino’s customers in the US can now use Pie Pass, a new service that lets buyers who place their order online or via the company’s app use a dedicated express pickup system when they collect their pizza... More
Shell and Dunkin’ have launched the ‘Sip Dunkin’, Save at Shell’ scheme that rewards members of both retailers’ loyalty programmes with a 10 cents per gallon saving on their fuel purchase whenever they have bought five beverages at a Dunkin’ outlet... More
Iconic UK retailer M&S is expanding its mobile self-checkout service to 49 stores across London, following a successful pilot at six stores that saw a Mobile Pay Go transaction being made every three seconds during lunchtime trading... More
A new ticketing system is to be introduced for users of public transport in the Australian capital city of Canberra... More
Merchants can now use Apple Pay to let shoppers purchase items from directly within an augmented reality experience, using a new Custom Action feature Apple has rolled out for AR Quick Look... More
Mastercard is working with transport operators on the development of new biometric ticketing solutions that will make it possible for passengers to be automatically identified as they board a service, the payments network has revealed... More
Las Vegas restaurant Makers & Finders is the first to use a new service that lets diners scan a QR code on their printed bill to pay for their meal with Apple Pay... More
Payments made via Apple Pay now account for around 5% of global card transactions, according to research firm Bernstein — and are set to represent 10% of all card transactions by 2025... More
Global contactless transaction values will reach nearly US$6tn in 2024, up from US$2tn today, Juniper Research forecasts... More
“We had a tremendously successful launch in India from which we learnt a lot of features, and we are bringing that and we are revamping our payments products globally,” Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has revealed... More
‘Low KYC’ norm to help mobile wallets retain their customers — Economic Times — “In a move set to bring relief to scores of mobile wallet firms such as Paytm, PhonePe, Amazon Pay and their several million users, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will allow wallet service providers to continue operating their millions of non-compliant know-your-customer (KYC) accounts which earlier faced cancellation… An estimated over 200m mobile wallets ran the risk of being cancelled by the regulators, once the deadline to upgrade their non-compliant accounts to ‘full KYC’ accounts expires on February 29.”
The digitalization of payments and currency: Some issues for consideration — The Federal Reserve — “Given the dollar’s important role, it is essential that we remain on the frontier of research and policy development regarding CBDC [Central Bank Digital Currency]. Like other central banks, we are conducting research and experimentation related to distributed ledger technologies and their potential use case for digital currencies, including the potential for a CBDC. We are collaborating with other central banks as we advance our understanding of central bank digital currencies.”
