Uber announces deeper push into financial services with Uber Money — CNBC — “The company announced on Monday the formation of a new division called Uber Money to house its efforts, which include a digital wallet and upgraded debit and credit cards. The emphasis, at first, will be expanding Uber’s efforts to give its four million-plus drivers and couriers around the world access to a mobile bank account so they can get paid after each ride. Uber could one day offer a bank account to consumers on its platform, according to Uber Money head Peter Hazlehurst.”
- Facebook Pay launches on Facebook and Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp to follow
- EU banks plot pan-European rival to Visa and Mastercard
- EU antitrust chief examines Apple Pay
- DressCode ships contactless payments shirts
- Mastercard partners with Tappy Technologies for wearable payments in Asia
eMarketer identifies top countries for mobile payments adoption
China remains the country with by far the highest mobile payments adoption rate, with 81.1% of smartphone owners making use of the technology, eMarketer reports. More
Apple Pay takes top slot as most popular mobile payments app in the US
Three in ten US smartphone owners now use a mobile payments app to make payments in stores — and Apple Pay is now the most popular with 30.3 million users, according to new research by eMarketer... More
WHSmith to accept online payments direct from UK customers’ bank accounts
Mastercard has signed up four WHSmith retail brands for Pay by Bank (PbBa), a strong customer authentication-compliant payments service that uses customers’ mobile banking apps and the UK’s faster payments system to let online retailers accept payments direct from shoppers’ bank accounts... More
Visa finalises acquisition of Rambus’ payments and ticketing businesses
PARTNER NEWS: Visa has announced that it has now completed its acquisition from Rambus of the company’s payments and ticketing businesses — formerly known as Bell ID and Ecebs. More
Ahold Delhaize brings mobile self-checkout to US supermarkets
Shoppers at 30 US supermarkets operated by Netherlands-based retail giant Ahold Delhaize will be able to use their mobile phone to scan items as they shop and then self-checkout and pay by the end of this year... More
Payments networks begin rollout of single buy button for online commerce
American Express, Discover, Mastercard and Visa have gone live with an online checkout service that lets merchants add a single buy button to their sites to accept payments from any of the networks’ cardholders — without them first needing to create an account with the merchant or enter detailed payment data... More
Report: EU antitrust investigators are examining Apple Pay
Apple Pay “has caught the eye of EU antitrust investigators, who have asked payment companies for feedback on the service,” regulatory risk specialist MLex reports... More
EBA sets new Strong Customer Authentication deadline
The European Banking Authority (EBA) has issued a new Opinion that provides the European payments industry with an EU-wide additional 15 months to comply with strong customer authentication (SCA) requirements for online ecommerce transactions... More
Samsung begins global rollout of mobile POS app that lets merchants accept payments on standard Android phones
Samsung’s NFC phone-based contactless payments acceptance service is now live in Canada and is to be introduced globally “starting in 2020”, the company has announced... More
Facebook loses Libra cryptocurrency backers
Visa, Mastercard, eBay, Stripe and Mercado Pago have followed PayPal in pulling out of Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency project. The moves mean that PayU is now the only payments company to still be listed as a founding member of the Libra Association. More
Royal Mint produces solid gold payment card
The UK’s Royal Mint has unveiled a payment card that is produced entirely from 18-karat gold and comes with “no spending limit”... More
Survey pinpoints roadblocks to US mobile payments adoption
A major investigation into US consumers’ attitudes to mobile payments has found that concerns over how well they would be protected against loss should an issue arise is now the major barrier to widespread adoption of the technology... More
Japanese merchants report sharp increase in mobile transactions
The introduction of the Japanese government’s Cashless Japan initiative, which provides consumers with cashback incentives when they use a card or mobile phone to make a purchase, has led to a significant upswing in mobile payments adoption, according to reports from a number of merchants and mobile payments providers... More
Raiffeisen Bank picks Antelop for NFC payments and strong customer authentication
PARTNER NEWS: Raiffeisen Bank has launched an Android NFC mobile payments service in Romania and the Czech Republic that uses Antelop Solutions’ digital payments and tokenization platform... More
NatWest begins biometric credit card pilot
The UK’s NatWest bank has begun a three-month pilot of a biometric credit card that enables customers to make contactless transactions of up to £100 (US$123) instead of the usual maximum value of £30 (US$37)... More
Samsung Pay adds digital cash card and money transfers
Samsung Pay users in the US are now able to send international money transfers from within the mobile payments app — and use a new Samsung Pay Cash account to make payments in stores and online “right from the Samsung Pay app”... More
UnionPay reports 200m mobile payments users
There are now more than 200 million users of the UnionPay mobile payments app, the China-based payments network reports, and more than 3m merchants outside mainland China now accept UnionPay mobile payments... More
China to move to common QR payments standard
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.”
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.”
