Employees travelling on Seoul Metro’s Ui-Sinseol light rapid transit line in South Korea are testing a face recognition payment system that enables passengers to pay their fares without needing to tap a smartphone or card or remove their face mask... More
Hyundai is to let iPhone users lock and unlock their vehicles and control selected vehicle systems remotely with a digital key compatible with Apple devices... More
Banks in South Korea will be able to add a wide range of non-financial services to their mobile apps, including food ordering and delivery, following changes to the country’s financial regulatory system due to be introduced by the Financial Services Commission (FSC) in July 2021... More
Drivers of Hyundai’s Genesis GV70 SUV will be able to make in-car payments for fuel and parking simply by touching a biometric sensor integrated with the vehicle’s infotainment system... More
Seven in ten consumers are confident with the security contactless cards/mobile wallets provide and 88% report a consistently positive user experience with NFC contactless technologies, a survey of consumers in nine countries around the world has found... More
Card issuer Shinhan Card is providing consumers in South Korea, where Apple Pay is yet to launch, with a phone case that uses soundwave technology to enable them to make contactless payments with their iPhone... More
The Bank of Korea (BOK) is to issue and circulate a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in 2021 to test its viability as an alternative to cash and other forms of transaction... More
Buyers of a premium limited-edition gin distilled in Austria will be able to verify a bottle’s authenticity and track how many remain available for sale by using their NFC phone to scan a crypto-enabled NFC chip fitted to the label... More
Transactions conducted by customers using Korean bank DGB Daegu’s IM Bank mobile banking app on a Samsung Galaxy A Quantum 5G smartphone will soon be secured with 5G quantum cryptography technology that generates true random numbers to encrypt one-time passwords and identity verification information... More
Samsung’s rotatable Sero TV, which uses NFC to let owners mirror both the content and perspective of their mobile phone, is now available in the UK and the USA... More
A new system that requires high-risk locations such as bars and nightclubs to use QR codes to log all customers on entry so that they can be easily traced should the venue later be found to have been a Covid-19 hotspot is to be rolled out across South Korea from 10 June... More
LG CNS is piloting a new payments solution that combines face recognition, a blockchain-based digital currency and AI technology to let shoppers enter an unmanned store, shop and check out — without needing to come into close contact with either employees or POS equipment... More
Kakao Pay and AlipayHK to become available at PayPay merchants from April 27, 2020 — PayPay — “Users of code payment services Kakao Pay and AlipayHK, in addition to Alipay, will be able to complete payments using QR codes provided by PayPay merchants anywhere in Japan as of the 27th of April.”
A new open banking system which is set to cut transaction fees by 90% has now entered pilot testing, Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) has announced... More
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
Korea’s Shinhan Card has begun testing Shinhan Face Pay, a face recognition payments system that it is developing with CU convenience stores operator BGF Retail “to identify customers who visit unmanned convenience stores in the future”... More
Visa sets sights on a ‘Cashless Japan’ with one year to go to the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 — Visa — “At the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, Visa offered a payment-enabled ring to its Team Visa athletes. At the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games, Visa commercially sold wearable products, such as gloves and lapel pins, enabled to make payments over contactless payment readers. For Tokyo 2020, Visa is exploring payment innovations ranging from biometric payment authentication and wearables to new mobile applications which will include digitally-issued cards.”
LG has launched its LG Pay mobile payments service in the US, enabling owners of its G8 ThinQ smartphone to make payments via NFC in stores equipped with a contactless POS terminal — and in stores with a magnetic stripe terminal using Wireless Magnetic Communication (WMC)... More
Shinhan Card develops blockchain-based payment system — The Korea Times — “With the patent-winning technology, the card firm has established a blockchain-powered credit transaction process that enables various functions, such as setting a maximum spending limit, paying in monthly installments and completing payments between merchants and consumers… The company is the first in the world to have established a credit transaction service using the new record-keeping technology, it said.”
Consortium launches blockchain-based digital ID in S Korea — Yonhap News — “A group of major tech companies and financial institutions have joined hands to launch a blockchain-based digital identity platform available on smartphones… Samsung Electronics Co, three mobile carriers — SK Telecom Co, KT Corp and LG Uplus Corp — KEB Hana Bank, Woori Bank and Koscom, an IT subsidiary of the main stock exchange, signed an agreement to jointly develop a mobile application for the digital ID platform.”
