Hotel customers with high credit scores will be able to book rooms on Alibaba’s online travel booking platform Alitrip without having to provide their credit card for room deposits and bypass check-out with payments automatically deducted from their Alipay accounts... More
China
China Telecom launches NFC ticketing
Residents of Shanghai and Beijing can now ride the metro and pay for tickets with their China Telecom NFC smartphones... More
Apple Pay hits delays in China
“Apple Pay has hit bumps in China despite Apple’s efforts to make friends with Alibaba and UnionPay,” Caixin reports... More
Mozido buys PayEase
Mobile payments platform provider Mozido has acquired Chinese cross-border payment gateway provider PayEase with the aim of introducing its mobile payments and retail marketing solutions into the Chinese market... More
NXP CEO: China will be next major NFC payments market
Chip maker NXP will focus on the “significant” Chinese market for mobile wallets, the firm’s CEO has said, as the company revealed a 40% increase in sales for its emerging ID business in a fourth quarter earnings call... More
Alibaba invests in visual QR codes
Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba has invested an undisclosed sum in Israeli start-up Visualead, developer of the “visual” QR code technology adopted by Chinese social media site RenRen in May last year... More
Alipay extends fingerprint IDs
Alipay has extended its fingerprint log-in capability for the Alipay Wallet to iPhone users, China Daily reports... More
MasterCard takes HCE to China
MasterCard’s cloud-based payment service is now available in China, following its initial launch in the US in September 2014... More
Alipay offers transport passes
Alipay is making it possible for Chinese tourists to purchase transport passes for Singapore, Thailand and Macau ahead of travel and then collect them by scanning a barcode on their mobile phones at booths and kiosks at their destination... More
Android Pay to use fingerprint security
Android Pay, the mobile payments service being developed by China UnionPay, will use both NFC and fingerprint verification, Want China Times reports... More
CUP to launch Android Pay in China
China UnionPay (CUP) is planning to introduce “Android Pay”, an NFC-based mobile payments service, in the third quarter of 2015, Yicai reports... More
CUP moves to block Alipay
China UnionPay (CUP), the country’s official card payments network, has issued notifications to its member banks to tell them “to avoid working with third-party payment services like Alipay”, Want China Times reports... More
Starwood’s mobile keys go live
The Bluetooth-based mobile keyless entry solution unveiled by Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide earlier this month is now live in 10 hotels in Beijing, Hong Kong, New York, Los Angeles and Doha and will be rolling out to Aloft, Element and W Hotels across the globe... More
Starwood Hotels picks Bluetooth for mobile room keys that work on smartphones and Apple Watch
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide has unveiled a mobile keyless entry system that will allow guests to use smartphones to unlock rooms using Bluetooth at 150 hotels around the globe by early 2015. The service will also be available via an Apple Watch app when the new wearable device ships next year, the hotel chain has told NFC World+. More
Alipay demos biometrics for in-store payments
Chinese online payments giant Alipay demonstrated Alipay Touch, a fingerprint biometric system for its mobile wallet app, at a conference in Beijing earlier this month... More
Alipay Wallet hits 190m users
Alibaba-owned online payments giant Alipay’s Alipay Wallet app now has 190 million active users in China who use the solution to shop online via their smartphones, pay bills and pay for public transport... More
Samsung Pay lands in China
Samsung’s version of Apple Pay is now live in China, Korea’s Yonhap news agency reports... More
China Mobile picks Gemalto for NFC ticketing in Beijing
China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile network operator, has chosen Gemalto to supply it with NFC-enabled SIMs “to protect consumer credentials used for mobile contactless applications, starting with mass transit services in Beijing.”... More
WeChat offers payments in stores
Tencent’s instant messaging app WeChat can now be used to make payments in the retail stores of nine Chinese merchants including DQ Ice Queen, NUS Pharmacy, Rainbow, One Plus One, Lotus, Good Neighbours, Baby Room, Minsheng Department Store and NUS 365, according to Iamwire... More
Alipay adds fingerprint security
Chinese online payments giant Alipay has adopted Nok Nok Labs’ S3 Authentication Suite, enabling customers with a Samsung Galaxy S5 to use the fingerprint sensor (FPS) on their device to authenticate payments... More