Google is reported to be considering acquiring the Tesco-owned loyalty agency that is responsible for the development of the supermarket giant’s Clubcard rewards scheme... More
United Kingdom
Contactless plan for London taxis
A proposal from Transport for London (TfL) explores whether contactless payments “with cards and other payment methods” should be accepted in all taxis across the city... More
Hill climb cars to include beacons
Vehicles taking part in British motor sports event The Broadmoor Pikes Peak International Hill Climb (PPIHC) will send notifications about section times, racer profiles, course map details and videos to a visitor’s smartphone using beacons supplied by KS Technologies... More
Barclays and Starbucks promote contactless in UK
Barclays customers can upgrade the size of their Starbucks coffee for free at participating locations in the UK when using their contactless card to pay until the end of June... More
Gemalto predicts fast uptake of Apple Pay in the UK
PARTNER NEWS: The prevalence of EMV in the UK, lower interchange fees and the existing contactless infrastructure will lead to faster adoption of Apple Pay in the UK than in the US, Gemalto’s Rémi de Fouchier forecasts... More
Tesco puts beacons in 270 London stores
UK supermarket giant Tesco has launched its “biggest trial” of Bluetooth beacon technology to date in partnership with consumer goods company Unilever... More
Lloyds Banking Group makes Apple Pay pledge
Lloyds Banking Group will begin offering Apple Pay to its Lloyds Bank, Halifax and Bank of Scotland customers from autumn this year, following the service’s UK launch in July... More
Worldpay and First Data announce Apple Pay UK support
Payment processors Worldpay and First Data have announced they will offer their merchant customers access to Apple Pay when it launches in the UK next month... More
Apple Pay users in UK will be able to make payments above contactless card limit
Customers who choose to use Apple Pay when the service launches in the UK will be able to use the mobile payments service to make transactions over the current contactless limit of £20 (US$30) at select retail locations, according to Visa Europe’s executive director of mobile... More
Tsys to support Apple Pay in UK
Payments supplier Tsys has announced it will help support secure transactions and facilitate enablement for issuers in processing transactions from Apple Pay when it launches in the UK... More
MasterCard confirms UK Apple Pay support
MasterCard has confirmed its role in the UK launch of Apple Pay later this year following comments it made last week that it was ready to switch on the mobile payments service in Europe... More
Barclays in talks to support Apple Pay
“We’ve been talking with Apple about how our customers could use Apple Pay, in addition to our existing contactless and mobile payment services,” Barclays said in a statement sent to NFC World following its notable absence from the list of banks supporting Apple Pay in the UK... More
Zapp prepares for UK mobile payments service launch
Zapp, the UK mobile payments startup formed by payments infrastructure operator VocaLink, has confirmed that it will launch its service in the autumn of this year, with NFC in-store payments to follow... More
Bookatable to roll out Pay-At-Table
UK online restaurant booking service Bookatable has integrated MyCheck mobile payments into its mobile app and will add pay-at-table functionality to more than 500 locations this summer, starting with Thai restaurant Busaba Eathai in London... More
Visa Europe to participate in Apple Pay UK launch
Visa Europe has confirmed that it will play a part in the the UK launch of Apple Pay and will give debit, credit and reloadable prepaid cardholders access to the payment system... More
Apple Pay adds loyalty cards and expands to UK
Apple Pay will be available in the UK from July 2015, vice president of Apple Pay business Jennifer Bailey has announced at the iPhone maker’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). Users of the mobile payments service will also be able to add store credit, debit and loyalty cards to their Apple mobile wallet from “this fall”. More
Apple Pay to launch in UK this summer?
Apple is reported to be planning to launch Apple Pay in the UK this summer, with an announcement expected today at the company’s Worldwide Developer Conference... More
TfL clocks up 100m contactless payment journeys
Transport for London (TfL) is now processing 1.2m open loop contactless payment transactions every day and is seeing 18,000 new contactless payment cards on a daily basis, with a total of 4m now in use... More
One in five Europeans expect to make daily mobile payments by 2020
One in five Europeans expects to use their mobile phone to make payments on a daily basis by 2020, growing from the one in ten who do so already today, research from Visa Europe has found... More
MasterCard ready to “switch on” Apple Pay in Europe
MasterCard is “absolutely ready” to switch on Apple Pay in the UK and Europe and is just waiting for the iPhone maker’s green light... More