Metlink, the transportation agency for the Greater Wellington region of New Zealand, has ceased accepting cash payments on all buses, trains, ferries and stations “to stay one step ahead of Covid-19 and give our passengers and staff more peace of mind”... More
Norway is increasing the transaction limit for BankAxept domestic contactless debit card payments from 400 kr (US$34.28) to 500 kr (US$42.84) “in order to minimise the number of physical touch points where infection can be transmitted”... More
Contactless transaction limits are to more than double from 120 Turkish lira (US$18.29) to 250 lira ($38.11), Soner Canko, chair of the Turkish Interbank Card Center (BKM) has announced... More
The Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) has issued a statement strongly encouraging banking customers “to take advantage of digital and online banking services as a measure to protect the health and safety for UAE residents.”... More
Poland has doubled the country’s contactless card transaction limit from 50 zloty (US$11.85) to 100 zloty ($23.71)... More
Canadian financial services group Desjardins has increased the contactless transaction limit from C$100 (US$69.72) to C$250 ($174.31) “on Desjardins terminals for Desjardins credit cardholders.”... More
“Whenever possible, use cashless payments, contactless and mobile payments,” Georgia’s central bank has urged the country’s citizens... More
ANZ is to provide free contactless debit transactions “for eligible small business customers” in New Zealand until 30 June, the bank has announced... More
Banks in Ireland have agreed to increase the contactless transaction limit from €30 (US$32.17) to €50 (US$53.54) “to minimise the handling of cash amid Covid-19”, The Irish Times reports... More
The Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) has increased the purchase limit for Atheer contactless domestic debit card transactions from SAR 100 (US$26.61) to SAR 300 (US$79.84), in a bid to reduce the spread of novel coronavirus... More
Banks in the Netherlands are seeking to combat the spread of Covid-19 by increasing the maximum value of contactless transactions that a cardholder can make before needing to enter a PIN to €100 (US$107.07), up from the previous €50 (US$53.54)... More
Airport hospitality group OTG is adopting Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology, enabling passengers shopping at its CIBO Express Gourmet Markets at New York’s Newark and LaGuardia airports to more quickly make last-minute purchases... More
Barclays has become the first UK high street bank to leverage open banking APIs to enable its customers to use its mobile banking app to make payments from accounts they hold with other banks... More
Merchants in the UK, Germany, Bulgaria and Romania are to participate in the pilot of a new mobile POS (mPOS) service that enables contactless payments to be accepted on Android mobile devices “without the need for any additional hardware”... More
UnionPay, Huawei and National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) have launched a mobile payments service that lets owners of Huawei and Honor NFC phones use a single mobile wallet app to pay at any merchant equipped to accept either contactless or QR code payments... More
Chinese mobile payments giant Alipay has announced a three-year plan to evolve its current offering into an open financial services and digital lifestyle platform — and has set a target of attracting 40m service providers by 2030... More
Consumers will use payments services provided by smartphone makers and other original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to make transactions valued at more than US$1tn a year by 2024, up from US$333bn in 2020, according to Juniper Research... More
Wells Fargo is running a promotion that lets selected cardholders receive a US$5 credit when they use their smartphone to make a cash withdrawal at one of the US bank’s contactless ATMs... More
Helsinki Regional Transport has begun the rollout of EMV contactless payments across the Finnish capital’s rail, bus and ferry network... More
Samsung Pay is now live in Kazakhstan, with the backing of nine local banks — Altyn Bank, Alfa Bank, ATF Bank, CenterCredit Bank, Eurasian Bank, ForteBank, Halyk Bank, Jýsan Bank and Sberbank... More
