Gautrain, the commuter rail service that connects the South African cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria, is to let passengers use their contactless bank cards to pay for their journeys by tapping on and off the service from 31 October... More
Five-currency basket: Brics countries create a single payment service — Izvestia (translation) — “One of the likely scenarios for the project is the creation of a special online wallet that will unite the payment systems of all the Brics countries… The common wallet will work in the same way as existing payment services, such as Apple Pay or Samsung Pay. To this end, a separate cloud platform will be created that will connect the national payment systems of the five countries.”
Absa to give clients early access to Samsung Pay — TechCentral — “Absa, in association with Samsung South Africa, will soon be offering its customers early access to Samsung Pay before the service is commercially launched in South Africa,” the bank said. “The partnership with Samsung Pay will give Absa customers even more choice on how they can make payments.”
Banking services now more accessible with Shoprite Money — Shoprite — “This new service will enable customers to deposit, withdraw or send money as well as buy groceries at any of the till points in all Shoprite, Checkers, Checkers Hyper or Usave stores across South Africa… Shoprite Money is set to roll out in multiple countries in Africa over the next 12 to 18 months, which will hold additional benefits for customers including seamless and cost effective cross-border remittance.”
Biometric ATMs extend banking services — IT-Online — “The TouchPoint validates a customer’s identity by scanning a fingerprint placed on the biometric reader and it can detect false fingerprints to prevent fraud. The identity of the customer is then verified with the Department of Home Affairs to ensure the self-service account opening complies with the relevant laws.”
Samsung Pay launch date for South Africa — MyBroadband — “Samsung Pay will launch in South Africa around June 2018, the CEO of Samsung Electronics Africa, Sung Yoon, has announced. Speaking on the Expresso Show, Yoon said Samsung Pay will be available this winter, but then firmed up his statement to ‘around June’.
Huawei Music, cloud services coming to SA — Tech Central — “The plan is to expand coverage outside China to 60 countries (including South Africa) by June and to 100 countries by the end of the year… Local banks that Huawei is talking to with the hope of integrating the service include Nedbank and First National Bank.”
SA scientists develop next-gen digital ID tech — IT Web — “The technology, dubbed aiDX, is an advanced identification technology that uses deep science to simulate human cognition in order to confirm or determine the identity of a person to industrial grade standards on any smartphone or device equipped with a camera.”
Employees at Pick n Pay supermarket stores and Absa Bank staff across South Africa have been trialling a biometric card developed by Mastercard that lets them make a payment at any EMV terminal and authenticate the transaction by placing their finger on the embedded sensor. Additional trials are planned over the next few months, with a full roll out expected “later this year”. More
South Africa’s First National Bank (FNB) has seen a 270% increase in the number of contactless payments made with its credit cards over the last six months... More
Mastercard has unveiled a new feature for its Qkr... More
Google has officially unveiled Android Wear 2.0, the new version of its operating system for smartwatches, and two new watches from LG — one of which comes with NFC to support HCE mobile payments using Android Pay... More
PARTNER NEWS: Proxama has signed a five-year contract with a “leading South African insurance and financial services provider” for the supply of in-house EMV card issuing, PIN management and card life cycle management... More
Nearly one fifth of global consumers (18%) have made an in-store mobile payment in the past six months, representing an increase of 10% from the same period in 2014, research released by trade body Mobile Ecosystem Forum (MEF) reveals. Chinese consumers lead the way, with 38% of them having paid with their phone at the point of sale — nearly double the global average. More
NFC World’s ‘Case study: Lessons learned from implementing HCE for cloud-based NFC mobile payments’ webinar is now available to view online... More
Join NFC World, Proxama and South Africa-based payment processor Tutuka at 3pm GMT today to get real-world insight into the practical issues faced and lessons learned when deploying a host card emulation (HCE) based mobile payment service, using Visa and Mastercard’s cloud-based payment standards... More
Join NFC World, Proxama and South Africa-based payments processor Tutuka at 3pm GMT on Thursday 8 December to discover the real-world issues faced when implementing a host card emulation (HCE) mobile payments service using Visa and Mastercard’s cloud-based payment standards... More
South Africans can now use Mastercard’s Masterpass digital wallet to pay for goods and services at more than 30,000 merchants accepting SnapScan in South Africa, using their mobile phones by scanning a QR code at the point of sale... More
McDonald’s South Africa is piloting a mobile payment service at select restaurants in Johannesburg and Cape Town using social messaging app WeChat Africa, enabling customers to complete purchases by presenting QR codes generated by the app at the point of sale... More
PARTNER NEWS: More than two thirds of smartphone owners use mobile banking apps, while nearly 80% consider security and reliability the most important attributes of a paid app, says a survey by Gemalto which is now available to download from the NFC World Knowledge Centre... More
• See NFCW's full list of trials, pilots, tests and live services around the world...
