Apple Pay may go live in Australia on November 19, following its launch in Canada earlier this week... More
Canada
Apple Pay goes live in Canada for American Express cardholders
Apple Pay has begun rolling out across Canada, allowing American Express cardholders to pay in-store with compatible Apple devices at Amex contactless merchants as well as make purchases within participating mobile apps... More
Apple Pay to launch in Canada this week?
American Express has confirmed that Apple Pay is set to launch in Canada on November 17, iPhone In Canada reports... More
Credit card networks in “standoff” with Apple in Canada
Apple’s decision to launch Apple Pay in Canada with just the support of American Express “had less to do with Apple’s strategy for entering Canada specifically, and more to do with a global push that aims to negotiate by credit-card network rather than bank by bank,” a source has told The Globe and Mail... More
Suretap adds Points loyalty cards to NFC mobile wallet
Canadian mobile wallet provider Suretap has added a loyalty section powered by the Points loyalty network to its NFC mobile wallet, enabling users to earn and use rewards offered by more than 100 global reward programs via their mobile phone... More
RBC reports strong uptake for HCE wallet, adds support for digital receipts, loyalty and gift cards
The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) has trebled its mobile wallet user base since moving from a SIM-based model to host card emulation (HCE) six weeks ago, the bank’s head of payments innovation has told NFC World... More
Apple Pay to launch in Australia, Canada, Spain, Hong Kong and Singapore
Apple Pay is to go live in Australia and Canada this year and in Spain, Singapore and Hong Kong in 2016, Apple CEO Tim Cook has revealed during the iPhone maker’s latest earnings call... More
MasterCard extends tokenization platform to clothing, accessories and wearable devices
MasterCard has extended the capabilities of its tokenization service to enable payments to be made using “virtually any device”, including NFC-enabled clothing, jewellery and vehicle keyfobs. “Products will begin rolling out in 2016 in the US,” the payments network says, “with plans to expand to other markets.” More
Ugo reports 100,000 NFC wallet users
Canadian open NFC mobile wallet provider Ugo Wallet has signed up more than 100,000 users since its launch in November 2014, up from 50,000 in August 2015... More
Velocity Mobile picks up Tab
Restaurant payment app provider Velocity Mobile has acquired Tab Payments, a mobile payments app for diners in Canada accepted at more than 100 restaurants in Toronto and Montreal... More
Calgary to get mobile ticketing app?
Commuters in the Canadian city of Calgary could soon pay for city services using their smartphones... More
Tangerine tests facial recognition
Scotiabank-owned direct bank Tangerine is reportedly experimenting with facial recognition technology on mobile devices... More
Starbucks Canada to add Mobile Order & Pay
Starbucks will launch its Mobile Order & Pay service in approximately 300 company-owned stores in the Greater Toronto Area of Canada on October 13... More
Scotiabank expands availability of NFC mobile wallet service
Canada’s Scotiabank has expanded the reach of its SIM-based NFC mobile wallet service to four additional mobile network operators by connecting to EnStream, the joint venture between carriers Bell Mobility, Telus and Rogers Communications that acts as a single connection point between the country’s card issuers and mobile network operators... More
Three in four Android users would use an NFC payments service
More than three quarters of Android users (78%) would use a service similar to Apple Pay if it became available to them, a survey conducted by Helixion has found... More
Starbucks rolls out mobile ordering across USA
Coffee chain Starbucks is to make its Mobile Order & Pay service available across the US so customers nationwide can place and pay for orders in advance using their iOS and Android devices... More
Canadian contactless transactions grow 150%
The number of contactless transactions conducted in Canada has increased by almost 150% over the past year, fuelled in part by the rapid roll-out of Interac Flash cards, research from Technology Strategies International shows. “The mobile payments landscape in Canada will change dramatically within the next five years, with about two thirds of the smartphones in Canada having NFC capability by 2019,” the company adds... More
RBC brings HCE mobile payments to North America
The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) has become the first financial institution in North America to go live with a host card emulation (HCE) mobile payment service following a pilot in December 2014... More
Half of Canadian bankers not yet ready for mobile payments
Nearly half of Canadian banking executives (46%) do not think they have the IT infrastructure systems and processes in place to meet present and future customer expectations for mobile payments, research from telecommunications provider CenturyLink reveals. “70% said they don’t have the infrastructure in place, or it needs improvement, for digital channels,” the company adds... More
Suretap reports 180,000 NFC wallet users
Some 180,000 Canadians have now installed the Suretap NFC mobile wallet and the average value per transaction has increased 22% month over month since its launch in June 2015, the company has revealed... More