Upmarket UK supermarket chain Waitrose is to become the country’s first major supermarket to operate a cashless store where customers will only be able to make payments by using a card or mobile phone at one of its five self-service checkouts... More
Archive: News in brief
Barclays enables Apple Pay support?
Barclays appears to be in the process of enabling support for Apple Pay in the UK, according to a terms and conditions page tweeted by a number of the bank’s customers... More
Xiaomi to launch Xiaomi Pay?
Handset maker Xiaomi has filed a patent in Korea for a mobile payment service called Xiaomi Pay, The Korea Herald reports... More
A third of Americans unconvinced about mobile payment apps
More than one third of Americans (36%) don’t feel a need for mobile payment apps, compared to 12% of Mexicans and 13% of Chileans, according to mobile banking service Fintonic... More
Google to terminate Google Wallet Card
Google will terminate its physical Google Wallet Card on June 30, an app teardown from Android Police reveals... More
Facebook Messenger to add in-store payments?
Facebook could be looking at letting its users make in-store purchases via its Facebook Messenger chat app, according to The Information... More
US students get mobile order and pay
Students at Missouri Valley College and Hannibal-LaGrange University can now order and pay for food and drink using their mobile devices... More
Apple Pay to expand to mobile websites?
Apple Pay will be available as a payment option on mobile websites “before this year’s holiday shopping season”, Re/code reports... More
Tencent reports major increase in mobile payment users
Chinese internet giant Tencent has reported that the number of monthly active users (MAU) of its mobile payments services has increased by seven times over the last year... More
FreeCharge adds chat payments to mobile wallet app
Indian consumers can now make payments to merchants and to friends and family using Chat and Pay, a messaging service built into the main FreeCharge mobile wallet app... More
Two billion smartphones to come with fingerprint sensors by 2021
The global biometrics market will reach more than US$30bn by 2021, representing a 118% increase from 2015, according to a new forecast from ABI Research... More
Sberbank enables cardless cash withdrawals in Kazakhstan
Customers of Sberbank Kazakhstan can now withdraw cash without a card at any of the 900 Sberbank ATMs across the country that have been integrated with OpenWay’s Way4 Cash technology... More
Indosat Ooredoo to launch NFC payments in Indonesia
Telecoms provider Indosat Ooredoo is to launch an NFC-based mobile payment service in Indonesia next month, Detik iNet reports... More
ABN Amro lets customers update debit card settings via mobile
Customers of Dutch banking group ABN Amro can now change the settings on their debit cards via its mobile banking app... More
Apple unveils iPhone SE with Apple Pay and Touch ID
Apple has announced a new, entry level iPhone that includes “an NFC radio and a secure element”, a Touch ID fingerprint sensor and support for Apple Pay... More
Visa Europe launches ‘Cashfree and Proud’ campaign
Visa Europe has enlisted the help of UK actors Brian Blessed and Joanna Lumley to promote contactless payments through a ‘Cashfree and Proud’ campaign that will run from March to May... More
One in four Norwegians use P2P payments app Vipps
A quarter of Norway’s population is now using Vipps, a P2P mobile payment solution launched by financial services group DNB and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in May 2015... More
Apple Pay adds US and Chinese banks
Apple has added another 48 banks and credit unions to its list of Apple Pay supporting financial institutions in the US and a further three banks in China, “notably including Ally Bank, one of the last major national US banks that had not supported the mobile wallet technology,” Macnn reports... More
MobiKwik lets mobile wallet users find local merchants
Indian mobile wallet service MobiKwik has added a new feature to its app that lets users search for locations where the service can be used to make in-store payments... More
Digital payments to increase 20% in 2016
Consumers will spend more than US$3.6trn using online, mobile and contactless payments services this year, up 20% from US$3trn in 2015, according to Juniper Research... More