Toronto-based in-store marketing specialist Aislelabs has published an online comparison examining Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacon hardware from 16 different vendors including Estimote, Kontakt and Gimbal... More
Archive: News in brief
Apple Pay arrives at more US banks
A second wave of banks are now going live with their Apple Pay deployments, MacRumours reports, with customers of US Bank, PNC Bank, USAA, Navy Federal Credit Union, Barclaycard, M&T Bank, Regions Bank, Renasant Bank, Keesler Federal Credit Union and Zions Bank all reporting that they are now able to use the NFC mobile payments service... More
40% of North Americans use mobile payments
40% of US and Canadian consumers have now used their smartphone to make a payment at a merchant location, up from 16% two years ago, according to Accenture’s 2014 North America Consumer Payments Survey... More
BKM adds Google Glass payment
Turkish card payment system operator BKM has begun testing payments with Google Glass through its BKM Express digital wallet solution... More
BBVA adopts Dwolla for faster payments
US bank BBVA Compass has joined up with Dwolla to offer real-time payments to its account holders for US$0.25 per transaction... More
Amex adds tokens and HCE
American Express has announced the US launch of American Express Token Service, a suite of solutions enabling traditional card account numbers to be replaced with tokens for mobile, online, in-store and NFC payments... More
Fresh & Easy tests ATM rewards
Seventeen Fresh & Easy stores in Phoenix are piloting new machines from in-store ATM operator Cardtronics that offer customers discounts they can apply to store purchases by scanning a QR code on their cash withdrawal receipt using a smartphone running the company’s AllTM app... More
60% of consumers will share data with stores
A majority of Americans (60%) would be comfortable divulging information about themselves anonymously to their favourite stores, a new survey from Wearables.com and The Center for Generational Kinetics reveals... More
Bedier unveils Poynt POS
The former head of Google Wallet has unveiled a payment terminal supporting mag stripe, EMV, NFC, QR codes and beacon technology with no add-ons or dongles needed... More
Kili puts mPOS in a chip
Payment processing solutions provider Kili Technology has unveiled a line of solution-on-a-chip processors that “allow designers to quickly bring to market certifiable mobile point-of-sale terminals that support all modes of payment including magnetic stripe, EMV contact and EMV contactless (via NFC) with the highest levels of security in the industry.” The processors go into production early in 2015... More
Charity picks up contactless pennies
The Mayor’s Fund for London has launched Penny for London, a service that automatically collects small charitable donations when commuters use their contactless cards to pay for journeys on the Transport for London (TfL) network... More
Football fans get BLE promos
UK Football League sponsor Sky Bet has installed Bluetooth beacons at Elland Road, Leeds and the New York Stadium, Rotherham to send offers to football fans as part of a pilot project that could be rolled out to other locations across the country... More
Samsung to offer money transfers
Samsung will launch a mobile money transfer service in Korea at the end of this year in partnership with mobile payment service provider Yelopay and six banks, Korea Bizwire reports... More
MCX responds to criticism
“Much of the conversation the past couple of days has been misinformed about the product MCX is developing, so we’d like to set the record straight,” the retailer-owned consortium says in a detailed blog post outlining its position and plans for its CurrentC mobile wallet that has been published in response to criticism of the decision taken by member merchants CVS and Rite Aid to pull support for NFC payments... More
McDonald’s adopts Softcard
McDonald’s 14,000 restaurants and drive-thru locations across the US have begun accepting Android NFC mobile payments following a successful pilot program with carrier joint venture Softcard that began in 2013... More
Apple Pay and HCE to push NFC payments to more than 500m users
There will be some 516m users of NFC mobile payment services by the end of 2019, up from 101m this year, thanks to the launch of Apple Pay and HCE, a forecast from Juniper Research has found... More
NFC tech included in iPad Mini 3
Apple has included an NFC chip in its new iPad Mini 3, a teardown by iFixit has revealed... More
Apple patent unlocks cars with BLE
A recently published Apple patent hints that the company is working on future CarPlay functionality that would allow users to lock and unlock car doors, start engines and perform other tasks using their iOS device and geofence technology... More
Ecocash tests NFC payments in Zimbabwe
Mobile network Econet’s payment service Ecocash is piloting NFC payments in Zimbabwe with cards that let users pay by tapping against a custom merchant device, TechZim reports... More
Alipay demos biometrics for in-store payments
Chinese online payments giant Alipay demonstrated Alipay Touch, a fingerprint biometric system for its mobile wallet app, at a conference in Beijing earlier this month... More