Customers of UK neobank Monzo can now create virtual debit cards for specific kinds of expenditure that are linked directly to funds they have set aside for that purpose rather than to their main bank account... More
Supermarket chain Aldi is trialling its first checkout-free store in London using technology that will enable customers to gain access to the store by scanning a smartphone app, select the products they want to purchase and then leave without needing to pay at a till... More
Apple users can now download and store verifiable health records including their Covid-19 vaccination status and test results in the Health app on their iPhone and will soon be able to add a card proving their vaccination status in Apple Wallet... More
Nearly two in three consumers in the UK (62%) would now prefer to use their payment card through a mobile wallet compared with 31% last year, according to a survey commissioned by Samsung Pay... More
A research paper published by the University of Exeter in the UK identifies the lack of global standards as one of the key barriers to the successful implementation of digital and paper-based Covid-19 health status certificates worldwide... More
Consumers can now prove their identity when picking up parcels and other deliveries at post offices across the UK using a digital identity app rather than a paper document such as their passport or driving licence... More
The UK will begin rolling out a new £100 (US$137) spending limit for contactless payments from 15 October 2021, UK Finance has announced... More
The number of debit transactions completed using a mobile wallet in the US rose by 51% year-on-year to approximately 2bn in 2020, with “a noteworthy” 92% of those transactions being made with Apple Pay and just 5% with Google Pay and 3% with Samsung Pay, according to research published in the 2021 Debit Issuer Study... More
Residents of Australia can now opt to store a digital vaccination certificate proving that they have been fully inoculated against Covid-19 in either Apple Wallet on an iOS device or in Google Pay on an Android device... More
An Australian parliamentary committee has held a public hearing at which it heard evidence from representatives of leading Australian banks, payment services providers and other financial bodies on regulatory issues including whether companies such as Apple should be mandated to allow third-party payment apps access to a smartphone’s NFC chip... More
Fans of Liverpool Football Club in England will be able to gain entry to home games at Anfield Stadium by scanning a digital NFC season pass or match ticket stored on their smartphone at stadium turnstiles... More
Owners, trainers and breeders of thoroughbred racehorses in the UK and Ireland will soon be able to receive a digital passport that will allow them to confirm the identity of a horse and store information about its health, welfare, movements and ownership... More
More than four fifths of consumers (81%) worldwide are ready to use a biometric payment card and authenticate payments with their fingerprint rather than a PIN code, according to a survey commissioned by a biometric technology provider... More
The European Union’s Digital Covid Certificate is now live across the EU as well as in non-member states Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, enabling residents to be issued with a proof of their Covid-19 vaccination status, negative Covid test result or recovery from the illness that is recognised regionwide... More
Public transport users in Northern Ireland will soon be able to make tap-on-tap-off contactless fare payments on all bus and rail services across the whole province using their debit or credit card or a single transit smartcard... More
The planned increase in the UK’s contactless transaction limit from £45 to £100 announced by the UK Treasury in March could come into effect on 5 August, according to a Reddit user... More
Some 17.3 million people or nearly a third (32%) of adult consumers in the UK were registered to use their smartphone or smart watch to make mobile payments in stores by the end of 2020, a “significant” increase of 7.4 million people compared with 2019, according to UK Finance... More
The UK government is to explore the implementation of walk-through “contactless corridors” at airports and other entry points to the country that will enable passengers to verify their identity using biometrics rather than their passport... More
Financial inclusion, creating a competitive ecosystem, comparison with other payment innovations, user privacy and monetary and financial stability will be the five core principles that guide the Bank of England’s future exploration and development of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the UK, the financial institution has revealed... More
Workers on a construction site on Heriot-Watt University’s Edinburgh campus in Scotland can now verify their identity and gain access to the site using only their face... More