US NFC mobile payments venture Isis has chosen Softcard as its new name... More
USA
Macy’s launches digital wallet
Customers of US department store chain Macy’s can now make online payments and save offers that can be redeemed in store with a new digital wallet, WWD reports... More
Nordstrom to partner Apple on payments?
Upmarket US retailer Nordstrom is in talks to partner with Apple on its new mobile payments service, Bank Innovation reports... More
Downtown uses Bluetooth beacons to deliver orders to customers’ tables
A café in Palo Alto, California is using a new service developed by startup Downtown that lets customers order and pay for their meals with their mobile phone... More
BBVA reports 250,000 mobile wallet users
Spain-based banking group BBVA has signed up 250,000 customers for its BBVA Wallet service and is to expand availability to the US, Mexico and Chile this year... More
Visa adds Checkout partners
Visa has signed agreements with a wide range of new partners that will make its new Visa Checkout service available to more than 4m online merchants across the US... More
Mapco adds mobile payments at the pump
Customers of US fuel and convenience store chain Mapco can now pay at the pump with their mobile phone at 276 of the retailer’s stores... More
Square lets consumers send cash by text
Payments startup Square has expanded its Square Cash service, which lets US consumers send money to a contact via email, to include support for sending funds via an SMS text message... More
Citi launches digital wallet
Financial services giant Citi has launched a digital wallet that uses MasterCard’s MasterPass technology to let US credit card holders “more quickly and conveniently make purchases at thousands of online merchants”... More
Walmart moves to EMV
Walmart MasterCard holders are to receive a replacement card “in the next few weeks” that includes an EMV chip... More
Levi’s Stadium adds BLE beacons
The Levi’s Stadium in San Francisco has installed 1,700 Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons that can be used “to give people pinpoint directions to their seats as well as to any other place in the stadium,” Time reports... More
US to get 575m chip cards next year
More than 575million EMV payment cards will have been issued by the end of 2015 by nine leading US card issuers who are members of the Payments Security Task Force (PST), an organisation set up in March 2014 “to drive executive level discussion that will enhance payments system security”... More
Two hundred US shopping malls to use BLE beacons for shopper marketing
More than 200 US shopping malls are to be equipped with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons by early 2015 as a result of an expanded agreement between retail real estate owner Simon and location-based mobile solutions provider Mobiquity... More
GameStop deploys BLE in stores
Video game retailer GameStop is deploying Shelfbucks beacons in test markets including Austin and College Station, Texas this month to deliver offers and relevant data to a shopper’s smartphone running a mobile app developed by BestFit Mobile... More
BLE guides the blind at SFO
Visually-impaired travellers at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) are now being guided through terminals via Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons supplied by Indoo.rs... More
US merchant groups call for creation of open tokenization standards
Leading merchant groups in the US have come together to call for the creation of an alternative set of open standards for tokenized payments that would be managed by an independent body such as ISO or ANSI — rather than by the payments industry. More
Hilton to let guests unlock their doors with smartphones
Hotel chain Hilton Worldwide has announced a plan to enable guests to use their smartphones as keys at the majority of its properties around the world... More
HBC deploys iBeacons in Hudson’s Bay and Lord & Taylor department stores across the US and Canada
HBC Department Store Group has begun using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons placed around its Hudson’s Bay and Lord & Taylor department stores in Canada and the US “to deliver digital experiences to consumers’ smartphones while they shop”... More
Pepsi tests NFC for shopper marketing
Pepsi has tested a new NFC shopper marketing solution developed by logistics optimisation solutions provider Rehrig Pacific that uses NFC chips and QR codes on display trays to “increase the opportunity for consumer interaction, at the point of sale, without increased merchandising or delivery costs”... More
Starbucks now processes six million mobile payments a week
Coffee chain giant Starbucks now has 12 million active users of its mobile app in the US and Canada alone... More