Samsung Pay has been launched across Taiwan with support from Visa and Mastercard along with seven major banks including Citibank, Cathay United Bank, E.Sun Commercial Bank, Taishin International Bank, Fubon Bank, Union Bank of Taiwan and Standard Chartered. The service supports iris scan authentication for those with Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ devices. More
Samsung Pay has expanded to four additional markets with official launches in Sweden and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and early access launches in Hong Kong and Switzerland. The service has also been made available on Samsung’s Gear S3 smartwatch in Russia, Sweden and the UAE in addition to its availability on the Gear S3 in the US, Singapore and Australia. More
Consumers across the United Arab Emirates will soon be able to make payments across a “variety of services” using their mobile phone and Empay, a common mobile payment platform based on NFC. The solution forms part of Dubai’s Smart Government Initiative which aims to transform Dubai into the world’s smartest city. More
Samsung Pay has launched an early access program in the UAE with support from Mastercard and Visa and a number of banks including Mashreq Bank, ADCB, Rakbank, Emirates NBD, Standard Chartered and NBAD... 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
Free Samsung Galaxy S7 smartphones preloaded with Samsung Pay are being offered to new credit card customers of Mashreq Bank in the UAE, as the mobile payments service launches there through an early access programme with the bank... More
UAE-based startup Smart Navigation Systems (SNS) is in talks with “several schools” in Abu Dhabi to begin piloting School Bus Application, a service that notifies parents of the safety of their children when travelling to school using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons on buses... More
PayPal has enabled money transfers via Apple’s Siri voice command function, enabling users with iOS10 devices to make payments by speaking requests... More
Half of banking customers around the world are using the products or services of at least one fintech firm, according to the first World FinTech Report (WFTR) from Capgemini and LinkedIn, but customer trust in fintech providers is low... More
The Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) in Dubai is developing a smart ticketing system that will check passengers in and out hands free using their smart cards or smartphones... More
Customers of UAE-based bank Emirates NBD can now make mobile payments using Emirates NBD Pay, a feature added to the bank’s mobile banking app utilising Visa Token Service... More
Attendees at the Government of Dubai Media Office’s Arab Media Forum charitable event were given NFC wristbands that let them tap on NFC scan stations and donate AED 170 (US$46) towards research into life-threatening illnesses such as cancer, obesity and cardiovascular diseases. More
Emirates NBD has announced plans to launch the UAE’s first digital bank targeted at millennials as part of its commitment to invest AED 500m (US$136m) in “digital innovation and multichannel transformation” over the next three years... More
Customers of Emirates Islamic Bank can now request account information through social media site Twitter... More
A white paper aimed at giving transport operators, transport authorities and ticket distributors greater insight into deploying mobile ticketing technologies and services while both containing costs and improving the passenger experience is now available to download from the NFC World Knowledge Centre. More
UAE’s Noor Bank and Yvolv, a joint venture between Alibaba and Dubai holding company Meraas, have introduced Yvo, a mobile app that allows users to make in-store payments using mobile phones and wristbands... More
More than 2,300 financial institutions and banking partners have now signed up for Visa’s tokenization service with international expansion set to happen “in the fall”, Visa has revealed during a third quarter earnings call... More
The UAE Banks Federation, a standards body representing 50 Emirates banks, has cleared its mobile wallet project for launch and is now awaiting final approval from the nation’s central bank following a pre-implementation phase completed in December... More
Two thirds of Australians are now aware they own a contactless payment card and 53% have made a contactless transaction, research released by RFi Group has revealed, taking the country to the top of a leaderboard for both contactless awareness and usage rates... More
The UAE Banks Federation has announced the completion of the pre-implementation phase of a project to develop a mobile wallet platform that all its 51 member banks will be able to use to offer P2P, mobile payments and loyalty programs to their customers... More
