Nearly two million Shenzhen residents, representing 15% of the city’s population, signed up for a chance to win 200 digital yuan (US$29.65) in the ‘red envelope’ lottery held as part of China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot... More
Consumers in the city of Shenzhen are being offered the opportunity to win one of 50,000 ‘red envelopes’ containing 200 digital yuan (US$29.65) that they can spend at any of more than 3,000 retail outlets in the city that now accept China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC)... More
While Alipay and WeChat Pay have by far the largest number of mobile payments users in China overall, younger and more affluent consumers are more likely to use less well known services such as Du Xiaoman Pay and QQ Wallet, an in-depth market analysis by S&P Global has found... More
The number of digital wallet users globally will increase from 2.3bn in 2019 to 4bn in 2024 and global non-cash transactions will grow to nearly 1.1tn in 2023 from 708.5bn in 2019, according to the World Payments Report 2020... More
More than 113,000 Chinese consumers have now used a digital wallet supporting “multiple payment methods, including barcode, facial recognition and tap-and-go transactions” to conduct a transaction using China’s new central bank digital currency, the People’s Bank of China has revealed. More
Users of Octopus transit cards in Hong Kong could soon be able to pay for public transport fares in mainland China, with the ability to make payments for purchases at stores across the country to follow, the company’s outgoing CEO has told the South China Morning Post... More
Asia is leading the way in the use and development of digital currencies and remains the world’s largest digital payments market, with China alone accounting for more than half of the total transaction value worldwide, according to a new research paper published by Singapore’s DBS Bank... More
Countries with digitised and innovative economies are more likely to be developing central bank digital currency (CBDC) projects while those with a larger informal economy are tending to focus on creating retail CBDCs, a working paper published by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) reports... More
China’s Ministry of Commerce has announced that pilot testing of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) developed by the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) is to be expanded to cover the country’s major commercial regions and cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Macau... More
Public transport users in Los Angeles will be able to add their TAP transit card to their iPhone or Apple Watch “this year”, LA Metro has announced... More
A new face verification ticketing system has been introduced in the city of Guiyang, capital of China’s Guizhou province, enabling public transportation users to board buses and subway services without having to show their ticket or tap a card or smartphone... More
Four in five vehicles shipped by Chinese car maker BYD in 2019 included support for NFC keys “and the percentage is expected to top 95% in 2021,” automobile industry publication Gasgoo reports... More
Face-based payments offer the potential to improve customer convenience and increase checkout speeds in stores but require consumer education to be built into the user experience to alleviate security concerns, an in-depth study of services currently on offer in China has found... More
Shipments of NFC-ready POS terminals reached 47.8m units globally in 2019, bringing the total to 100.4m worldwide, according to Berg Insight... More
Starbucks, McDonald’s among 19 firms to test China’s digital yuan — Coindesk — “Starbucks and McDonald’s are reportedly among 19 restaurants and retail shops that will be involved in testing China’s central bank digital currency in the country’s Xiong’An new district, a local news outlet reported on Thursday, citing a government document. The move signals China’s wider efforts to test the digital currency project, with state-owned commercial banks already developing wallet applications for the digital yuan, also known as DC/EP.”
Internal closed pilot tests of the central bank digital currency (CBDC) developed by the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) are to be conducted in Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiong’an New District, Chengdu, and at Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics locations, China’s central bank has revealed... More
Commuters in 275 Chinese cities can now add their T-Union public transportation card to their iPhone or Apple Watch and then use their smartphone or wearable to tap in and out of bus and subway services without the need to first validate the transaction using Face ID, Touch ID or a passcode... More
The Chengyang District of the city of Qingdao has become the first in China to use a new WeChat service to issue government vouchers directly to residents’ mobile phones, in a bid to boost consumer spending as the Chinese economy begins to recover from Covid-19... 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
