PARTNER NEWS: Following this week’s rebranding of Bell ID and Ecebs, both acquired by Rambus in January 2016, the general manager of the company’s Rambus Security division to which the two companies now belong has set out his vision for the division going forward... More
- Bank of China lets taxi drivers accept central bank digital currency payments on NFC mobile phones
- Juniper forecasts 25% increase in POS terminal transaction values by 2028
- STMicroelectronics launches NFC tag chip with elliptic curve cryptography
- NFC Forum survey finds majority of consumers now prefer making payments with their mobile phone
- Hello, NFCW readers!
Samsung Pay to launch in India with support from five Visa and Mastercard issuers — and Paytm
Samsung has begun inviting Galaxy phone owners in India to register for early access to Samsung Pay. Customers can opt to pre-register Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Standard Chartered Bank debit or credit cards and SBI Cards credit cards today with support for American Express and Citibank to follow. Paytm’s market leading mobile wallet will also be supported by the service. More
Chinese mobile payments exceed US$1tn in one quarter
China’s third-party mobile payments market reached RMB 9,041.9 billion (US$ 1314.23 billion) in size during Q3 2016, a quarter on quarter increase of 20.5%, according to research published by China-based Analysys... More
Mobile World Congress survey: IoT and mobile payments ‘biggest business opportunities’ for 2017
The Internet of Things (IoT) is seen as the biggest business opportunity of 2017 by nearly half of visitors and exhibitors at Mobile World Congress surveyed by the GSMA (48.2%), followed by mobile payments (14.5%) and artificial intelligence (14%). More
Cook: Apple Pay has “hit an air pocket”
Apple CEO Tim Cook told attendees at the company’s annual shareholder meeting this week that Apple Pay “hit an air pocket” this year with adoption in the US trailing other countries, such as China and Australia, where NFC is more broadly available, AppleInsider reports from the event... More
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Apple Pay begins major promotional campaign in Japan
Apple is promoting adoption of Apple Pay in Japan via a two month campaign that offers a wide range of rewards and benefits to consumers who choose to use the NFC payments service. More
EcoCash and Mahindra win GSMA best mobile payments solution award
PARTNER NEWS: Zimbabwean mobile payments service EcoCash, powered by Mahindra Comviva’s Mobiquity Money platform, has been named Best Mobile Payment Solution at the Mobile World Congress Glomo Awards... More
UK sees 250% rise in NFC mobile payments in stores
The number of mobile transactions as a percentage of all in-store transactions has grown by 247% in the UK over the last year, analysis of transaction data and a consumer survey conducted by payments processor Worldpay has found. Workers paying for lunch on the go and payments for drinks in bars are the main drivers of the increase in transaction volume. More
NXP signs deals to add NFC to cars
PARTNER NEWS: Five “leading car OEMs” are to integrate NFC technology from NXP into cars to enable a variety of secure interactions including vehicle access, Bluetooth and WiFi pairing, personalization and payments, the chip maker has announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona... More
Mastercard and Visa expand availability of QR payments
Visa’s mVisa QR-based mobile payment service is now live in India, Kenya and Rwanda and will soon be available in Egypt, Ghana, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Pakistan and Vietnam, the company has announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona... More
PayPal reports 50% rise in mobile payments
A third of all transactions processed by PayPal are now conducted using a mobile device, PayPal COO Bill Ready has revealed, with the company processing more than US$31bn in mobile payments in the fourth quarter of 2016 — up 53% from the same period in 2015... More
More than 500m people now have a mobile money account
Over half a billion mobile money accounts have been registered in 92 countries, with 1.3bn transactions processed in December 2016 alone, research from GSMA reveals. More
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Mahindra Comviva adds offers and promotions to mobile money platform
PARTNER NEWS: Mahindra Comviva is making it possible for mobile money operators to increase user engagement with the addition of a new service that enables relevant offers and promotions to be delivered automatically to users’ mobile devices. More
Mastercard adds bar tab feature to Qkr! mobile payments app
Mastercard has unveiled a new feature for its Qkr! mobile payments solution that will allow customers in a bar or restaurant to open a tab and pay their bill when they want, without leaving a payment card or identity document with the bartender or waiting to pay at the bar. More
Huawei includes NFC payments in new smartwatch
Huawei has unveiled a new smartwatch at Mobile World Congress that supports NFC payments... More
China’s central bank tests digital currency for in-store payments
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has conducted trial runs of a prototype cryptocurrency it has been developing since 2014 that could be used “to buy anything from noodles to a car”, The Straits Times reports... More
NXP reveals secure element and NFC solution that speeds transaction times, increases security and supports smaller form factors
PARTNER NEWS: A new embedded secure element and NFC solution from NXP will make it possible for mobile transactions to be conducted at the same speed as contactless card transactions. It also enables biometric security, opens up a range of new applications across the Internet of Things (IoT) and can be built into “smaller and thinner form factors than before”. More
Google Assistant comes to more Android phones
Google Assistant will be made available to all phones running Android 7.0 Nougat and Android 6.0 Marshmallow operating systems, Reuters reports... More
GSMA predicts 1.1bn 5G connections by 2025
The GSMA forecasts there will be 1.1bn 5G mobile connections by 2025, with 5G networks providing one in eight of all mobile connections and driving “massive rollout of intelligent IoT nodes for a multitude of scenarios”... More
Rambus unveils Unified Payment Platform for mobile payments and loyalty
PARTNER NEWS: Rambus has unveiled a mobile payments platform that will allow retailers to launch mobile payment and loyalty services that securely store and manage a variety of payment cards, as well as gift cards and loyalty points, to enable consumers to pay with credit, points and coupons in a single transaction at the point of sale. More