Supermarket chain Sainsbury’s has launched the UK’s first till-free grocery store, with the pilot being used to help develop the company’s SmartShop Scan, Pay & Go technology which allows shoppers to pay via their smartphone... More
Uber is to extend its partnership with PayPal to explore future commercial payment collaborations, including the development of a digital wallet for the on-demand transport firm... More
Marshall ID cards now available on iPhone and Apple Watch — Marshall University — “By simply placing their iPhone or Apple Watch near a reader where physical student IDs are accepted, users can enter residence halls and libraries, access dining plans, purchase food, buy items in the university bookstore or in vending machines, print documents and more.”
Nike’s ‘cryptokicks’ trademark application hints at its new blockchain ambitions — The Next Web — “The application, filed on April 19, outlines how the company‘s proposed digital currency could be used by an online community. The document also describes an online footwear and clothing marketplace, as well as ‘a website featuring technology that enables users to mine, earn, purchase, receive by any other means, store, and transfer blockchain-based tokens, coins, cryptocurrencies, and other crypto assets’.”
Mobile ticketing app for Taiwan’s Taoyuan metro to be fully launched Wednesday — Taiwan News — “Passengers travelling on the Taoyuan metro line will be able to pay their fares using a mobile app, starting Wednesday… Using their credit or debit cards, passengers will be able to buy tickets via the app and swipe though the turnstiles at the metro stations with a QR code on their mobile devices.”
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Amazon Pay launches person to person (P2P) payments through UPI for Android customers — Amazon — “Customers can use this functionality to settle bills/expenses with friends, lend/return money to family, pay rents, pay for services like house-help, newspaper bills, milk subscription and more. Customers can also make payments from their bank account to local stores nearby or to [an] Amazon delivery associate at [the] doorstep by scanning UPI QR codes using the Amazon app.”
Smart ticketing has been introduced for passengers using major railway stations in the UK. The move sees travellers at all major stations across Britain, including London Waterloo, Brighton, Gatwick Airport, Edinburgh Waverley and Glasgow Central, able to store tickets securely on their mobile phone, on a smart card or in a printable email. More
NatWest Bank has begun a three-month pilot of bank cards incorporating a fingerprint. In all, 200 cards will be issued to UK customers who will be able to use the fingerprint scanner to authenticate contactless transactions above the current limit of £30. More
Twelve vending machine providers with an installed base of more than one million vending machines have signed up for Civic Pay, a blockchain-based platform that combines identity and age verification, QR code mobile payments, loyalty and rewards... More
PayPal reports first quarter 2019 results — PayPal — “We now have 277 million customer accounts, including 22 million merchant accounts and over 40 million active Venmo accounts… Person-to-Person (P2P) volume grew 41% to $42bn, representing 26% of TPV. Venmo processed $21bn of TPV in the first quarter, growing 73%.”
Apple Pay officially launches in Austria — MacRumors — “Apple’s mobile payment system is now supported by the country’s largest bank Erste Bank und Sparkasse, as well as German-based mobile bank N26… Apple says additional Apple Pay partners ‘coming soon’ to Austria will include Bank Austria, Boon, Edenred, Revolut and VimPay.”
Apple may expand the iPhone’s NFC tech to third-party developers during WWDC — TechSpot — “NFC is getting major improvements, including the ability for third-party developers to read any ISO 7816, FeliCa or MiFare tags. Currently, only tags formatted as NDEF can be read by third-party apps… Keep in mind, the news is from anonymous sources and is far from official.”
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Alipay to spend US$448m plugging new face scanner — Yicai Global — “Dragonfly 2’s next-generation 3D cameras are more precise and have a wider angle, and since the device can handle payments under various lighting conditions merchants will not need to make any changes to their store lights… The scanner is priced at CNY1,999 (US$298.50), nearly 30% less than the previous version.”
Visa is inviting issuers and processors to explore a new payments platform designed to “turn the transaction on its head” and “unlock an entirely new world of possibility when it comes to accessing, accruing and saving money”. More
Europe needs to get off the sidelines — Deutsche Bundesbank — “Here in Europe, we need to prevent a situation from arising in which American and Chinese payment systems are all we have left to choose between. Highly successful firms from the United States and China are looking to carve out a huge chunk of the European market. Hence the desire to forge a payments solution with a clear-cut European ‘brand’.”
JCPenney explains why it dropped Apple Pay — Techcrunch — “A third-party credit card brand made the requirement for all merchants to actively support EMV contactless functionality effective April 13, retiring the legacy MSD contactless technology in place. Given the resources and lead time associated with meeting the new mandate, JCPenney chose to suspend all contactless payment options until a later date.”
Web Payment Security Interest Group Charter — World Wide Web Consortium — “The mission of the Web Payment Security Interest Group is to enhance the security and interoperability of web payments. The group pursues its mission by creating a forum for organizations to define areas of collaboration and identify gaps between existing technical specifications in order to increase compatibility among different technologies.”
Google has begun rolling out a new feature that scans a Gmail user’s inbox and then automatically adds any coupons, loyalty cards, airline boarding passes and movie tickets that it finds to their Google Pay wallet. More
McDonald’s has incorporated the AlipayHK payments wallet into its mobile app for consumers in Hong Kong. In a global first for the fast food retailer, the app also allows customers to order food and access exclusive Alipay rewards. More
PARTNER NEWS: NFC World readers are invited to join ST Microelectronics’ Jim Barlow for a 20 minute webinar exploring the potential of NFC Type 5, the NFC-RFID crossover technology that gives longer range ‘vicinity’ communication with dedicated reader hardware and also allows ‘proximity’ interaction with a smartphone... More